Xiaomi, Oppo working on in-house 5G chips, to launch by end of 2021

Qualcomm and MediaTek could soon have new competitors as Xiaomi and Oppo are reportedly developing sub-6GHz 5G chips.

Xiaomi in-house 5G chip. (REUTERS)

Xiaomi and Oppo are reportedly planning to develop custom 5G chipsets. The two Chinese companies plan to launch their in-house sub-6GHz 5G chip between late 2021 and early 2022, according to a report by Digitimes. Xiaomi and Oppo would be competing with Qualcomm and MediaTek, the biggest mobile chip manufacturers globally.

The report adds that Unisoc is also joining the race with its own 5G chip along with Xiaomi and Oppo. Digitimes quoted industry sources in Taiwan on the latest 5G chip development by the Chinese smartphone brands. There isn't much else revealed about the custom chips from Xiaomi, Oppo and Unisoc. But with a launch timeline that isn't too far away we could be actually seeing 5G chips from Xiaomi and Oppo. This would also make the two companies less dependent on chip makers Qualcomm and MediaTek.

The report comes shortly after Xiaomi teased a new chip ahead of the Mi 11 Ultra launch. It's not a mobile processor but an in-house imaging processor. This is also the first one it created since 2017 when it debuted its first in-house chipset, Surge S1. The Surge S1 is equipped with eight Cortex-A53 processing cores, four clocked at 2.2GHz and the other four at 1.4GHz. The Surge S1 uses a quad-core Mali-T860 for graphics.

Xiaomi and Oppo preparing its own 5G chips could also keep the companies prepared for a situation that Huawei is facing due to US restrictions. Huawei had to stop developing its custom Kirin chipsets from TSMC due to the restrictions imposed by the US government. This news also comes amid China increasing its semiconductor development so it becomes less dependent on other companies.