Remember Xiaomi’s first-ever self-developed processor, the Surge S1? The chip made headlines back in 2017 as it pushed the Chinese smartphone maker into the elite group of tech companies like Samsung and Huawei that could develop their own chipsets. However, after the Surge S1, we didn’t hear much about its chip development progress. The latest information from China suggests that Xiaomi has likely abandoned its chipset project.
According to an industry insider, Xiaomi is focusing its attention on other projects which are not as complicated or expensive as developing an application processor. Instead of making smartphone processors, the company is looking to develop low power Bluetooth, RF chips, and other peripheral components. He notes that this would be different from Huawei’s strategy of completely investing in its chipset business.
He further adds that Xiaomi seems to be looking for a balance between developing a competitive product and financial profit. In this regard, it is diversifying its chip business to avoid the long-term costs of research and development.
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Over the past couple of years, Xiaomi has heavily invested in a number of chip companies. Just last week, it acquired a stake in Hypower Electronics, a fast-charging chip maker. Earlier this year, Xiaomi made strategic investments in two chipset manufacturers. Last year, Xiaomi had also invested in a chip designing firm, Verisilicon.
Even before this comment from the industry insider, there were reports about Xiaomi abandoning its smartphone processor project and converting this department into an employee-owned company with shares in Xiaomi. So after considering this new information, it looks like Xiaomi has indeed given up on its self-developed chipset ambitions.
The company’s first processor, the Surge S1, received a lukewarm response. But the Surge S2 was expected to be the real star of its processor lineup featuring four Cortex-A73 powered performance cores. This would have made for an upper mid-range chip back in 2018. However, a Xiaomi executive revealed that the company had faced unexpected hurdles in its development project. At the start of 2019, he assured that the team was still working on the new chip.
But it looks like the company’s second Surge chipset may never make it to the market. Designing a smartphone chipset is an extremely complicated process, engulfed with a lot of challenges. Even the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung, with years of experience in this industry, is still unable to match Qualcomm chips in terms of efficiency.
Notably, Xiaomi has not made any official announcement regarding its chipset development since 2018.
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