It turns out that Xiaomi is preparing to shake the dynamics of the industry by entering the chip development business. According to the latest news, the Chinese tech giant is preparing to rival the dominance of companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek in the smartphone processor market by collaborating with leading semiconductor design company ARM to produce its own processors.
Xiaomi collaborates with ARM to produce its own processor
The partnership came to light when MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai confirmed ARM’s collaboration with Xiaomi. Initial news surfaced on Weibo via Digital Chat Station, announcing for the first time that Xiaomi will follow in Oppo’s footsteps and develop chips with ARM.
Oppo had previously embarked on a similar journey to produce its own smartphone chips in collaboration with ARM, leveraging ARM’s Cortex CPUs and Mali GPUs. However, this venture faced hurdles in the smartphone market, leading to its eventual abandonment in 2023.
With Oppo backing down, Xiaomi has seized the opportunity to forge a partnership with ARM and appears to have a plan that has the potential to disrupt the status quo in smartphone processor manufacturing. As Xiaomi moves forward in this new area, it will need to make important decisions on the choice of partners for chip design and manufacturing.
A light-powered, unhackable chip has been developed that could increase the speed of data transfer and reduce electricity consumption.
Established companies such as Apple and Google have partnered with TSMC and Samsung respectively for the production of their custom-designed chips. Xiaomi faces a similar dilemma in choosing a suitable partner to turn ARM’s designs into tangible, high-performance processors for its smartphones.
The journey from concept to market-ready processor is fraught with challenges. MediaTek’s outsourcing of chip development by working closely with smartphone makers to tailor chips to their specific needs is crucial. What do you think? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section.
