Oppo would like to do as Apple, Samsung and recently even Google do: away from Qualcomm and MediaTek for a home-designed chip
Lately, major smartphone manufacturers all seem to have one goal in common: to reduce their dependence on chipmakers, namely Qualcomm and MediaTek, since Samsung doesn’t seem particularly well disposed to cede Exynos to competitors in large quantities.
Aside from vivo powering the X70 and X60 with Samsung chips, the Seoul-based company doesn’t cede its high-end Exynos to third parties, especially at a time like this when chips are almost rarer than gold. Therefore, in fact, the “generalist” chip producers are two, Qualcomm and MediaTek, which have the task (not very enviable these days) of satisfying the enormous demand that comes from Android producers, especially those engaged on several continents and that also for this reason sell many phones and consequently many chips. Among these there are the companies of the Oppo group, that according to the most recent rumors want to abandon Qualcomm and MediaTek to design their own chips at home, as for example Google did with the recent Pixel 6.
Oppo chips already at an advanced stage
Oppo would be intent on conquering a greater autonomy at least for high-end products and chips, and if the fourth manufacturer in the world moves on the path of independence, the big boys of the sector – Qualcomm and MediaTek in fact – cannot sleep peacefully. According to rumors coming from Asia, the work to break away from the two big players is already at an advanced stage.
To design and then produce a chip from scratch is estimated to take several years, so, if it were true the rumor that Oppo would be ready to launch smartphones with a proprietary chip as early as 2023 or 2024 at the latest, it means that the project of the fourth group in the world dates back a couple of years ago. And it would have all the intention to do seriously, without disfiguring against the competition.
It can not go unnoticed the news that Oppo would work alongside TSMC on chips with a rather advanced production process at 3 nanometers. To be clear, Qualcomm’s current top-of-the-line chip, the Snapdragon 888, uses a 5-nanometer one. Simplifying, the lower the number, the better the compromise reached in terms of power and energy consumption, so the 3 nanometers with which the first chip of Oppo would be made would be a sign of a design among the best ever.
Objective? To take the place of Huawei
To put oneself in the design of a chip, moreover, allows a better control of the supply chain, as well as the problem for which the chip crisis has been talked about for a long time. So Oppo, in this way, would be able to dribble the problems that currently insist on the market and that make intermittent the availability on the market of technological objects.
According to the well-informed, Oppo would have decided to launch itself in the design of a proprietary chip as soon as it knew about the US measure against Huawei, which has in fact blocked its growth. The intention, in short, is clear: if the indiscretion is true, Oppo would like to take the place of Huawei in the smartphone sector and lead its evolution.