Xiaomi, Oppo coming up with their own 5G chips

Chinese handset makers Xiaomi and Oppo are reportedly working on their own custom 5G system on chip (SoC), which could be ready by the end of 2021 or early 2022. The chips will come with support for sub-6GHz 5G, as per reports.

Xiaomi recently confirmed that it will be launching a new SoC soon, although it didn’t mention any tentative launch date for the same. Interestingly, this isn’t the first Xiaomi in-house chipset either. Back in 2017, the maker revealed the Surge S1 chip, built on the 28nm process and powering the Xiaomi Mi 5c smartphone, said reports.

Apart from Chinese players, US-headquartered Google is also working on its own chipset codenamed Whitechapel that will power its upcoming Pixel 6 device. According to a report by 9To5Google, the company refers to the chip as “GS101,” with “GS” potentially being short for “Google Silicon.” This upcoming chip could also end up inside of Chromebooks if powerful enough. The Whitechapel SoC is apparently being co-developed by Google with Samsung.

Unisoc, a Shanghai-based budget chipset maker, is also working on SoC with support for next-gen connectivity, according to reports.