Oppo is developing proprietary chips for flagship phones: Report

Oppo is developing its own high-end chips for flagship mobile phones, according to a Nikkei report. Two people who spoke to the newspaper said the plan was to launch custom SoCs in 2023 or 2024 "depending on the speed of development." Oppo reportedly wants to use TSMC's advanced 3nm process technology for the chips.

If the plans go through, Oppo would be the last major smartphone maker to take control of its own SoC design. Yesterday, Google released the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, its first phones with a custom SoC called the Tensor. Apple and Samsung also design their own smartphone chips, as did Huawei before US sanctions decimated its mobile phone business.

Oppo currently uses chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek, like every other Chinese smartphone vendor since the Huawei crackdown. Xiaomi designed and released a low-end SoC called the Surge S1 for its Mi 5C budget phone in 2017, but since then its chip design efforts have been limited to secondary components like image signal processors.

As Qualcomm uncovered in a Google subtweet last week, it would lose out if big companies like Oppo took on the SoC design themselves. Oppo is the world's fourth-largest smartphone maker by shipment, according to IDC, and since it shares a supply chain and ownership with Vivo, Realme, and OnePlus, Oppo-developed chips could quickly find their way into multi-brand phones. Oppo currently uses chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek, like every other Chinese smartphone vendor since the Huawei crackdown. Xiaomi designed and released a low-end SoC called the Surge S1 for its Mi 5C budget phone in 2017, but since then its chip design efforts have been limited to secondary components like image signal processors.

As Qualcomm uncovered in a Google subtweet last week, it would lose out if big companies like Oppo took on the SoC design themselves. Oppo is the world's fourth-largest smartphone maker by shipment, according to IDC, and since it shares a supply chain and ownership with Vivo, Realme, and OnePlus, Oppo-developed chips could quickly find their way into multi-brand phones.