Xiaomi and Oppo are currently working on their own custom 5G system on chip (SoC), which could be ready by the end of 2021 or early 2022 according to a report by DigiTimes. The chipsets will come with support for sub-6GHz 5G.
Last week, Xiaomi confirmed that it will be launching a new SoC soon. However, it provided us with no tentative launch date for the same.
“The initiative has become ever-more critical, with a global chip shortage crimping supplies and U.S. sanctions hobbling Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, once China’s top smartphone maker and for a time the only company capable of producing high-end smartphone processors,” according to a Reuters report.
To recall, this will not be Xiaomi‘s first in-house chipset as it has already produced the Surge S1 chip back in 2017, built on the 28nm process. The Surge S1 SoC powered the company’s Mi 5c smartphone. Since then, there hasn’t been much development on the chipset front, till recently. The company has once again launched a new Surge C1 chipset, which powers the new Mi Mix Fold‘s camera. However, this chipset is not a full fledged chip that can power the whole device.
Apart from Chinese companies, Google also seems to be working on its own chipset, codenamed Whitechapel. The new chip is expected to power the company’s upcoming Pixel 6 smartphone. According to a report by 9To5Google, the company refers to the chip as “GS101,” with “GS” potentially being short for “Google Silicon.” This upcoming chip could also end up inside of Chromebooks if powerful enough.
The Whitechapel SoC is apparently being co-developed by Google with Samsung. The budget chipset manufacturer Unisoc is also working on budget 5G SoC’s with support for next-gen connectivity.
