Chinese handset maker Xiaomi Corp (小米) yesterday launched its first in-house mobile phone chipset for its new smartphones to better suit clients’ needs, following in the steps of its rivals, including Huawei Technologies Inc (華為).
The new chipset, dubbed Surge S1, is to first be used in Xiaomi’s latest flagship model, the Mi 5c, the company said in a statement at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The handsets are to be available in China from Friday at online and brick-and-mortar stores for 1,499 yuan (US$218.23) each.
Photo: AFP
Two-and-a-half years ago, Xiaomi established fully-owned chip design subsidiary Pinecone (松果) to develop chipsets for its own use.
“The ability to create its own chipsets is the pinnacle achievement for any smartphone company. For Xiaomi, the move is an essential next step in our development,” company cofounder and CEO Lei Jun (雷軍) said in the statement.
Xiaomi can better integrate its hardware with software technologies by designing chipsets in-house, Lei said.
The company did not say if it would supply its chipsets to other mobile phone vendors.
Hisilicon Technologies Co (海思半導體), a handset chip designing subsidiary of Huawei, only designs chips for its parent company.
The Surge S1 employs a high-performance octacore ARM Holdings PLC Cortex-A53 processor featuring big.LITTLE architecture, and was designed for use in mid to high-end smartphones, the statement said.
The chipset is made using a 28-nanometer process, Xiaomi said.
Xiaomi has applied for more than 16,000 patents, of which it has been granted 3,612, including 1,767 international patents, it said.
Hsinchu-based chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) said it did not expect smartphone makers entering the handset chip design sector to significantly affect its business, citing high technological barriers and expensive development costs.
Unless they sell as many as 100 million units per year — Samsung and Apple annually sell 200 million units each — it will be too costly for handset makers to develop mobile chipsets for their own use, MediaTek co-chief operating officer Jeffrey Ju (朱尚祖) told reporters.
Xiaomi is one of MediaTek’s clients.
Xiaomi last year sold about 50.32 million smartphones, 3.7 percent of the 1.36 billion units sold worldwide, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) data showed.
Huawei last year sold about 131 million units, the data showed.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”