Popular China-based phone manufacturer Xiaomi is reportedly divorcing from Qualcomm to develop its own line of "Pinecone" SoCs for future top-tier smartphones.
Xiaomi To Create Own Mobile Processors
The move, if true, stands as a signal that the company is fully prepared to stand out in its highly competitive home market, and it represents its desire to join the ranks of Apple, Samsung, and others who also make custom chipsets for their devices.
Chinese companies are exerting increasing effort to develop their proprietary technology, so as not only to assume foothold in the market, but to differentiate themselves altogether, offering phones whose hardware is integrated with its software, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Pinecone chips will be released within a month, according to the report. The chip could land on the forthcoming Xiaomi Mi 6, which should be released sometime in March, if the company sticks to its annual release pattern.
More On Pinecone
The chip division isn't just plucked from somewhere, however. Using a shell company called "Beijing Pinecone Electronics," the company shelled out $15 million to acquire such a mobile processor technology from Datang subsidiary Leadcore Technology Ltd.
Advantages Of A Proprietary Chip
At present, nearly every Android smartphone not from Samsung or Huawei packs a chip from Qualcomm, often for high-end offerings. Occasionally, Qualcomm slips up, such as with 2015's Snapdragon 810, which was the target of overheating problems, and when those slip-ups occur, most phone manufacturers have no recourse.
Samsung, meanwhile, has its own Exynos chips, although it still releases smartphone variants with Qualcomm chips packed inside. In 2015, Samsung took advantage of its chip independency and shipped Exynos in the Galaxy S6, avoiding the Snapdragon 810 fiasco altogether.
Creating chips in-house, especially for a phone manufacturer, not only makes sense, but is necessary.
"A phone maker can only reach the pinnacle of user experience when optimizing the integration of hardware and software on its own," said Sean Yang, a Taiwan-based research director with TrendForce, a tech research firm.
Beijing Pinecone Electronics is officially set to develop Xiaomi's own processors, the report states. A regulatory filing shows that it has an equity pledge agreement with Xiaomi.
The global smartphone market, as it balloons, has underscored the need for in-house chips, because of the advantages associated with it. For one, supply-chain executives say that overwhelming demand has left smartphone makers scrambling for components, a task which could potentially be less exhausting if the components come from the phone maker itself.
Still, whether Xiaomi can actually stand out remains to be seen. Apple and Huawei are the leaders in self-developed chips, according to Wang Yanhui, Mobile China Alliance's secretary-general.
In the United States, Xiaomi has struggled to assume a firm foothold, as per Ars Technica. Not that it's not trying, though: it's making moves by adding a U.S. Store, and such, but no Xiaomi smartphone has ever officially landed stateside.
Xiaomi isn't attending this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, so questions about its Pinecone chips will have to wait.
