Xiaomi’s first flagship phone chip is a genuine Snapdragon 8 Elite rival

[soAsian]

1. ARM based
2. 3nm (I don't think SMIC can do 3nm. it's either TSMC or Samsung, right?)

"It will take some comfort in the fact that just this week the two companies signed a multi-year agreement for Xiaomi phones to keep using Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8-series chips, but there can’t be much doubt that Xiaomi’s long-term plan is to go it alone. After all, if Apple can, why can’t Xiaomi?"

Everyone seems to be gunning for their own custom chips.

It started in smartphones and is trickling down to PCs and servers. Where will Intel/AMD or Qualcomm/MediaTek be in 10 years when everyone and their grandma is making chips based on ARM?

Big Winner = Masayoshi Son?

Xiaomi’s first flagship phone chip is a genuine Snapdragon 8 Elite rival

The Xring O1 isn’t here to play.

www.theverge.com

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Yes, TSMC N3. I know about Xiaomi and QCOM, I always wondered if Xiaomi and MediaTek worked together? I heard rumors but nothing lately.

 

[siliconbruh999]

Some Benchmark and Die shots I found on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1925553936687407235

 

[siliconbruh999]

It's going to be difficult for Qualcomm now since any company can make an ARM Chip thanks to TSMC.

 

[Paul2]

Some Benchmark and Die shots I found on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1925553936687407235

View attachment 3198View attachment 3199

It's not the first time Xiaomi has ordered a cookie cutter SoC from design outsourcing cos, with off-the-shelf IP for everything.

The question is what's the commercial rationale for making a cookie cutter SoC today?

 

[MKWVentures]

So the question is: what is the competitive advantage Qualcomm has that makes people not want to use their own chip? Especially when politics is making people not sell or buy from China companies?

Does Xiaomi do all the IP or are they using off the shelf IP..... Who provides that? @Paul2

Example: Many companies today claim their own custom chips but the IP is 75% Broadcom.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Some Benchmark and Die shots I found on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1925553936687407235

That's a lot of Arm IP. I bet Arm China made Xiaomi a good deal on cores. Is Arm limited to what they license in China? Arm cores -1 or -2?

 

[Paul2]

So the question is: what is the competitive advantage Qualcomm has that makes people not want to use their own chip? Especially when politics is making people not sell or buy from China companies?

Does Xiaomi do all the IP or are they using off the shelf IP..... Who provides that? @Paul2

Example: Many companies today claim their own custom chips but the IP is 75% Broadcom.

Aside from the modem, 80% of a budget phone SoC around 6-7 years ago was Arm and designware

Purely monetary rationale? No. Mediatek, with their volumes, will get incomparably better deal for IP, and design service than any third tier SoC company.

I know the story how all the mainland cookie-cutter SoC players walked away from the smartphone space without fighting: NuFront, AmLogic, Allwinner, RockChips. Most seen that after 40nm, there is really nothing for them to do unless they can command the same treatment as tier 1 player from foundries, and key IP vendors. And the space for 3rd grade SoCs was extremely crowded 10 years ago, 20+ SoC makers at one point.

The paradox was that Allwinner was at one point outselling both Intel, and Qualcomm taken together in mobile SoCs, but at the same time getting ARM IP, and foundry sevice at significantly worse rates than Qualcomm.

Allwinner took Qualcomm's bribe to abandon its smartphone SoC plans in favour of becoming Qcom's low-end SoC distributor at an extremely lucrative terms.

Intel made the same kind of deal witn RockChips, while they still had ambitions for an own smartphone chip, which never materialized.