From imaging NPU, to AP, to full-blown mobile SoC

It feels like everybody in smartphones is thinking about custom chips lately, and last month, Oppo launched the Find X5 series with the MariSilicon X imaging NPU, its first-ever custom processor. We’ve been hearing that Oppo might produce its own chips for its smartphone for a while now, including full-blown SoCs. Now a new report adds fuel to that fire, attempting to lay down a more specific timeline for when this chip might arrive.

Chinese site IT Home reports that Shanghai Zheku (Oppo’s IC design subsidiary) is currently working on an application processor, per XDA Developers. The AP will be produced on TSMC’s 6nm process and will supposedly enter mass production in 2023. The report notes that the company will then release an SoC that incorporates this application processor and a modem (and on a 4nm process, no less), sometime in 2024.

Details about the chips themselves are still largely up in the air (clock speeds, GPU, etc.) and we don't even know if we're talking about a flagship or more mid-range SoC. But these latest reports are at least in keeping with what we’ve heard so far.

The smartphone SoC market is becoming more competitive than ever. Aside from companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek making chips used in phones from all different brands, Android OEMs have been in and out of this space for a long time. For years, Samsung has created its own Exynos chips, even though they’ve mostly lagged behind their Qualcomm counterparts. Huawei produced its own Kirin chips, but the US ban put the breaks on that. And just last year, Google debuted its in-house Tensor chip for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.

Oppo sounds like it could be next in line, and its chipset ambitions would help reduce dependency on Qualcomm and MediaTek. We’ll have to wait and see if its custom solution ends up being an actual improvement, or just another among many SoC options.

Haroun became an Android enthusiast in 2014 and has been avidly following the industry since then. He's into many things, but when not scouring the net for the latest tech news, you can find him on his website geeking about cars and car accessories.