Why it matters to you
More competition in the processor market is a good thing — and it means that chips could get faster and cheaper.
Many of the major smartphone manufacturers have developed quite a dependence on Qualcomm over the years, but new reports indicate that yet another manufacturer is looking to begin building its own chips so it can move away from Qualcomm. That manufacturer is Xiaomi, and it follows in the footsteps of the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
According to the report, Xiaomi is actually well into development of its own chip, which it calls Pinecone, and it could be released “within a month.” If the timing proves to be accurate, Pinecone could be the processor used in the Xiaomi Mi 6, which is expected to be released at some point in March.
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The news isn’t totally surprising. Xiaomi is using a company called Beijing Pinecone Electronics for its chip development, and the company paid $15 million for a mobile processor company called Datang, which it acquired from Leadcore Technology in 2015.
These days, almost every device manufacturer that isn’t Apple, Samsung, or Huawei relies on Qualcomm for their high-end processors. Sometimes, that presents issues. For example, the Snapdragon 810 got a little hotter than usual, and most manufacturers were left with few alternatives. Even Samsung, which has its Exynos chip division, still uses Qualcomm chips a lot of the time.
Sometimes, supply is also an issue. Samsung is one of the major manufacturers of Qualcomm’s chips, and is expected to be the only company with access to the Snapdragon 835 for quite some time — leaving other manufacturers without Qualcomm’s flagship processor option for a while.
It will be interesting to see how Xiaomi’s processor efforts affect its business model. The company has so far struggled to launch as a real competitor in the West, despite making headlines with devices like the Xiaomi Mi Mix.