The vast majority of smartphone makers rely on third-party-designed chipsets. Only a select few, like Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Google, have managed to use in-house chipsets in their devices. A few years ago, Xiaomi attempted to do the same but abandoned the project after only releasing one model. Now, recent reports suggest that Xiaomi is working on resuming in-house chip design, including a 3nm chip aiming for 2025.
Xiaomi could return to chip design with a 3nm mobile hardware platform in 2025
In 2017, Xiaomi launched its first mobile chip under the name Surge S1. It was a mid-range 28nm chipset that competed with the likes of the Snapdragon 626 at the time. The company integrated it into the Xiaomi Mi 5C, the most affordable model in the Xiaomi Mi 5 lineup. However, for one reason or another, the company returned to third-party suppliers for its phones’ processors and has been doing so ever since.
That said, a DigiTimes report claims that Xiaomi has already finished the development of a 3nm chip and will announce it sometime in 2025. It’s quite likely that the Chinese giant will turn to TSMC for the production of the alleged SoC. After all, 3nm wafers are particularly problematic for Samsung Foundry. On the other hand, Chinese company SMIC hasn’t even managed to set up the 5nm manufacturing process in its factories yet, potentially forcing Huawei to be stuck on 7nm for future chips.
The company could be working on a 4nm chip as well
An August report claimed that Xiaomi is planning to launch a 4nm SoC in H1 2025. It could use TSMC’s N4P manufacturing process and could have power equivalent to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Therefore, the company might have two proprietary mobile hardware platforms ready for production.
Successfully developing an in-house chip is a tech breakthrough that requires a large initial investment, but pays off in the long run. Tensor and Exynos chips from companies like Samsung and Google cost around $80-$100 per unit in the BOM of their products. However, reports indicate that the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite costs around $200. Therefore, the profit margin per unit increases significantly when a company develops its own chip. OPPO is also said to be developing an in-house chip, but no further news has emerged on this matter.
