Xiaomi Pinecone SoC Release Date, Specs Rumors: Chinese Manufacturer to Develop Own Processors, to Launch Within a Month?
Xiaomi is reportedly developing its own system on chips (SoCs) that will power the company's next-generation smartphones. This is seen as a bold move that lessens the Chinese smartphone manufacturer's dependence on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors.
According to a Chinese-language report from Economic Daily News (via Digitimes), "Xiaomi will become the second smartphone vendor in China to develop and sell its own smartphone processors, after Huawei."
The processors, dubbed "Pinecone," are said to be developed and released by Xiaomi's subsidiary, Beijing Pinecone Electronics.
Xiaomi usually uses Snapdragon processors for its devices but it was noted that sales of its Mi 5 smartphone were hampered due to a shortage of Snapdragon 821 chips.
With Qualcomm's partnership with Samsung, the South Korean tech giant will reportedly receive the first batches of the chipmaker's newest flagship chipset — the Snapdragon 835. This seemingly explains why HTC's new U Ultra smartphone is powered by the Snapdragon 821 and why LG is also considering the same move.
As such, Xiaomi producing its own chips could be a very wise move as it will no longer have to rely on other manufacturers for the availability of components and it will have more control over the release of its products in international markets. Furthermore, Xiaomi will be able to increase its profits, which are already quite slim to begin with since its devices are sold at a substantially lower price compared with other brands.
Reports suggest that Xiaomi's highly anticipated Mi 5c smartphone will be the first device to be equipped with a Pinecone processor. The device and the processor are rumored to arrive within a month.
According to Tech2, there could be two variants of the processor announced — Pinecone 1 with an octa-core Cortex-A53 central processing unit (CPU) and Pinecone 2 with four Cortex-A73 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores. They are said to be built using the 10-nm process.
It should be noted that Xiaomi has not commented on the latest reports and speculations regarding the rumored Pinecone processors, so, information should be taken with a grain of salt.
