Xiaomi has been rumored to be working on a proprietary chipset that will power its next generation of smartphones. Typically, Qualcomm and MediaTek processors power various devices, but 2025 might be bringing a new competitor in the market.

Xiaomi’s 3nm Custom Chip Arriving in 2025?

As of right now, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite and MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 SoCs are 3nm flagship chips that are featured on new and upcoming premium smartphones. Xiaomi is also among the brands that look to these two chipmakers for its devices. But now, future Xiaomi devices will feature the self developed custom chipsets that will be based on the 3nm process.

According to a DigiTimes report (Via WCCFTech), the Chinese tech giant plans to announce its proprietary chipset in 2025. Unfortunately, the exact quarter for the release in 2025 is still unclear. However, it does offer us an expected launch timeline. Considering it’s a 3nm based chip, we can expect it to be a high-end processor that will power a flagship smartphone. With the Xiaomi 15 launching with the Snapdragon 8 Elite, so there’s a chance that this self developed processor may power the Xiaomi 16.

Notably, this news arrives a month after our last report regarding this Xiaomi chipset. The brand had successfully taped out its first 3nm chipset, which is based on TSMC’s advanced process. So Xiaomi is not only becoming more self dependent, but the brand might even become a proxy for Chinese brands that face a trade ban. A great example is Huawei, which was cut off from its primary chip supplier, TSMC. Meaning, other Chinese companies could take advantage of this as well. Keep in mind that this is still just speculation at the moment, so take this news with a pinch of salt for now and stick around for more updates.

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It will be a historic moment for Xiaomi on February 28, when the company will announce its first ever processor, the Xiaomi Pinecone at a conference in China. We have seen Xiaomi’s innovative strategies work out in almost every area where it placed its bets, but processors are not easily developed in-house. If it was easy, you would have seen lots of smartphone chipmakers in the market. But there aren’t many, and it is no surprise that only tech giants like Apple, Samsung and Huawei have managed to successfully develop commercial chipsets for its smartphones. But Xiaomi is nowhere nearly as big as these three giants and it would really be interesting to see the company’s take on its own chipsets.

There are currently a lot of questions and doubts regarding the Xiaomi Pinecone chipset and I’ll try to explain most of the questions regarding the processor in this article. Read on to know more about one of the most important products from Xiaomi till date.

XIAOMI PINECONE

Xiaomi has been eyeing to develop in-house chipsets for quite some time now and we started hearing rumors and reports about this as early as 2015. Lei Jun’s plan to make independently developed chipsets seems to have kick started after the big deal in 2014. At the start of November 2014, a company called Beijing Songguo Electronics (also called as Beijing Pinecone Electronics) entered an agreement with Leadcore Technology Ltd., a Chinese IC design company for ‘SDR1860 platform technology transfer contract’ at 103 million Yuan (~$15 million USD).

Now, initially, when Datang Group (make note of this name as it will come again) announced this deal officially, there wasn’t much thought given to its relation to Xiaomi. But soon, it was found that two of Xiaomi’s employees, who were responsible for research and technical development at Xiaomi also worked at Beijing Pinecone Electronics. This revealed that Xiaomi controlled Beijing Pinecone Electronics, which also meant the company’s plans to develop its own processor got a significant boost.

Fast forward to March 2015 and we saw the first fruit of this deal, the Xiaomi Redmi 2A. It was the first Xiaomi smartphone to be powered by a Leadcore chipset and one of the first steps towards working together with Leadcore to develop its own chip. It was one of the best super cheap smartphones of the time, costing just 599 Yuan ($88).

Since then, we haven’t really seen a Leadcore powered Xiaomi smartphone, probably because Xiaomi was busy developing its own in-house Pinecone processor. But we will surely see the fruits of the past two years on February 28.

So, now you must be wondering why would Xiaomi develop its own in-house processors, when it can continue to rely on established chipmakers like Qualcomm and Mediatek, who are experts in this field.

There are a number of possible reasons for this:

1. First of all, Xiaomi is one of the world’s top smartphone companies and its sales exceed 50 million each year. Given the high amount of smartphone sales and the prospective growth, it actually makes sense to invest money in R&D for an independent chipset. The cost of developing an in-house chip is huge and it gets distributed among the millions of units in sales. If your scale is not large enough, it wouldn’t make sense to spend so much for a self-developed processor.
2. Despite the company trying to sell more high-end smartphones, the majority of the phones sold by Xiaomi is from the low-end to mid-range segment. It is a price sensitive market and you have to make sure that your smartphone is priced aggressively in order to have an edge over the competitor. Given the rising cost of components, it becomes really hard to limit the costs to the current levels. Using an in-house chip could help in bringing down the cost. Every dollar counts in the low-end market.
3. Another good reason for developing in-house chipset is the lack of good choices available for Xiaomi. There are five major chipmakers in the smartphone market today — Qualcomm, MediaTek, Apple, Samsung, and Huawei. Qualcomm chipsets are costly, so not ideal for low-end to mid-range market where prices have to be kept near cost; MediaTek’s chipsets are decent, but they are not really up to the mark as compared to Qualcomm and MTK’s reputation is not really stellar; then comes Samsung, whose chipsets are not mass produced in very large quantities (as compared to the other two) and Meizu seems to be the only notable manufacturer getting Exynos chipset orders. Finally, there’s Apple and Huawei whose processors are exclusively used by their own smartphones, so not something that Xiaomi can get hold of.
4. In-house chips could also offer Xiaomi better bargaining power from the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek for its other models, as the two chipmakers know Xiaomi doesn’t have to rely entirely on their processors.
5. International expansion is also made possible with the help of in-house chipset with its own 4G modem. Remember Leadcore is a subsidiary of the state-owned Datang Group, which has a lot of patents under its belt.
6. Having your own processor gives you greater control over supply chain and product cycles.
7. A self-developed processor will help in better optimization of hardware and software which is very important in the best performance of the smartphone.
8. Finally, to be able to achieve something as making your own processors puts you in the big league, with the big three giants, Apple, Samsung, and Huawei. It’s an elite club and will definitely enhance the overall brand image of the company. Lei Jun wants Xiaomi to be regarded as an innovative tech company and Xiaomi Pinecone along with products like the Xiaomi Mi Mix will definitely help the CEO realize this goal.

Xiaomi is reported to have had around 200-300 people employed to work on the development of its in-house chipset around early 2016. And in the initial stage, the Xiaomi Pinecone chipset is said to power the widely leaked Xiaomi Mi 5C smartphone.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note series would also be an ideal potential candidate for the Pinecone processor given it’s one of the best selling lineups of the company and is priced aggressively.

Now coming to another important part: Xiaomi Pinecone Specs

At this moment, the Xiaomi Pinecone processor is said to come in two variants — V670 and V970.

Xiaomi Pinecone V670

So, the Pinecone 1 (V670) is the less powerful version of the two and will be a mid-range chipset. Here are the rumored details of this chipset:

CPU: 4 x Cortex A53 @ 2.2GHz + 4 x Cortex A53 @ 1.7GHz

GPU: ARM Mali-T860 MP4 @800MHz

Process: SMIC 28nm HKMG

Launch: February 2017

Before we move onto the chip’s expected performance, let’s first wonder why Xiaomi Pinecone 1 is manufactured using SMIC’s 28nm process. Some would argue that Xiaomi should have used much-advanced manufacturing node, something like a 14nm process for its first ever independent processor.

There are multiple reasons for this, the major one being the cost. The Pinecone chipset should be giving Xiaomi an edge in pricing its products and the 28nm process is much cheaper than something like the 14nm / 16nm processes used by rival chipsets. Another major reason is that 28nm is enough to meet the performance of eight Cortex A53 cores. Also, Datang Holdings has invested in SMIC, so it’s easier to get a good deal for manufacturing its chipsets.

Xiaomi Pinecone (V670) Performance:

While the chip is yet to be released and tested officially, leaks suggest that the Pinecone 1 should be placed above MTK Helio P10 and Snapdragon 625 in terms of performance. We have already seen the Xiaomi Meri (another name for Xiaomi Mi 5C) on Geekbench with decent performance.

Xiaomi Pinecone V970:

The Xiaomi Pinecone V970, the flagship grade chipset is said to come with impressive specs.

CPU: 4 x Cortex A73 @ 2.7GHz + 4 x Cortex A53 @ 2.0GHz

GPU: Mali-G71 MP12 @ 900MHz

Process: 10nm Samsung

Launch: Q4 2017

Definitely looks like an interesting chipset for Xiaomi’s flagship phones, but for the time being, expect the top-end models from the company to continue using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8XX processors. At this point, we have no info on its performance but the specs definitely instill confidence in the chip.

Of course, these specs, although detailed are rumored and only after Xiaomi officially announces the Pinecone processor, we will know the exact details.

I hope this clears most of the questions regarding the company’s upcoming pinecone processors.

So, what do you think about the company’s move to release self-developed Pinecone chipset?

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Xiaomi is all set to announce its first ever processor, the Xiaomi Pinecone chipset on February 28. We already have seen a couple of warm up teasers from the company, including a poll asking fans which Pinecone logo was the best. Now, the company has released its first ever teaser video for the Xiaomi Pinecone processor.

While the video does not reveal any specific feature or specification of the processor, from the theme, it looks like Xiaomi is trying to hint that the processor will be quite powerful. Recent reports have said that the Pinecone chipset should be placed somewhere above the Mediatek P10 and near to Snapdragon 625 in terms of performance. So, it will basically be a mid-range chipset.

Despite the video showing Chinese text, the theme of the video is quite clear. In the video, Wang Feng, two-time World Memory Championship Winner, is asked to memorize two sets of 100 numbers shown on two large displays. While this would be an impossible feat for a regular human being, Fang is different as he is a mnemonist, and can recall unusually long list of data. So, unsurprisingly, in the video, he managed to write down the entire set of data, in proper sequence without much trouble.

RELATED: Xiaomi Pinecone Processor Could Come in Two Versions

Note that memorizing this much data isn’t a big deal for Wang as he holds three world records — recalling 300 of 400 spoken numbers, memorizing 500 numbers in five minutes and 2660 numbers in an hour!

We can expect Xiaomi to release more such interesting video teasers for its Pinecone chipset in the coming days.

To recap, recent rumors state that the Xiaomi Pinecone processor will feature 8 x Cortex A53 architecture with integrated baseband (Cat. 6 support). We’ll get full details about the chipset at the big event on February 28.

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Sometime mid last year, we heard rumors that Xiaomi was developing in-house chipsets to power some of its low-end smartphones. This topic has come to light a few times in the past few months, however, neither the company nor related parties were ready to comment. Now, a new report from Reuters throws some more light into the company plans for its in-house chipsets. The agency reports that one of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter has said that the company plans to release smartphones with its own chipsets by the second half of 2016.

Xiaomi has traditionally sourced chipsets for its smartphones from market leaders such as Qualcomm and Mediatek. The company even has a low-end smartphone with a Leadcore chipset. But, if this news turns out to be true, this would be the first time the company is venturing into the chipset market.

However, this move is not really surprising. Xiaomi seems to be simply following the footsteps of top end smartphone manufacturers like Samsung and Apple. These two, and even Huawei use in-house designed chipsets inside its smartphones.

As for Xiaomi, at the moment, the source reveals that the self-designed chipsets would most likely end up in the company’s mid-range and low-end devices. Its not known whether Xiaomi aims to completely rely on its own chipsets in the coming years, but at least we can expect to see models from the Redmi Note series to feature in-house designed processors.

Given that only three major companies, namely Apple, Samsung and Huawei have successfully managed to release smartphones with their self-designed processors, it would be interesting to see whether Xiaomi manages to become the fourth one on the list this year.

Second half of 2016 isn’t very far and if this report is correct, expect a lot more information about Xiaomi’s processor plans in the coming months. Stay tuned.

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According to latest reports, Xiaomi is currently developing its own, independent processor. The company has already experimented with a Chinese chip maker for its super cheap Redmi 2A smartphone and taking account of its success, it is said that this Chinese startup is all set to release its first processor by early 2016.

The Redmi 2A which was launched back in April came with Leadcore’s LC1860C quad-core chipset. The performance of the chip was similar to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 but it costed the company way less. As a result, Xiaomi was able sell the device for only 499 Yuan! Naturally, this helped the company sell more than 5.1 million units of the device in the first three months alone.

It is said that Xiaomi wants to overcome the various drawbacks in its smartphones by launching its own chipset. The new Xiaomi processor will be used in low-end Redmi series phones. On the other hand, the high-end devices like the Xiaomi Mi 5 will continue to use Qualcomm’s flagship chipsets (Snapdragon 820?).

Xiaomi has also reportedly acquired the full range of ARM core licenses. Further, the company recently hired the former Qualcomm China President Wang Xiang, which should definitely help it achieve its goal.

Although the company is yet to announce anything officially, this could indeed turn out to be true. All major manufacturers are increasingly becoming independent when it comes to the use of processors. Samsung, Huawei, Apple are some of the company’s direct competitors who use their own chipsets inside their devices. Given that Xiaomi has a habit of making moves pretty quickly, this does seem possible.

Anyways, what do you think about such a move from Xiaomi? Is this best for the company to rely on its own processor for its low-end devices?

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