14 DAY TRIAL // Many Xiaomi smartphones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets, as do many other phones on the market. It seems that the Chinese company is looking to expand its options in terms of smartphone chipsets and has been working on a very powerful SoC, built on the 10nm process.
Chinese news agency Anzhuo revealed that Xiaomi’s upcoming Pinecone CPU has Cortex-A53 cores in an octa-core architecture, expected to deliver the same performances as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 chipset. The Chinese company is said to equip its upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5c smartphone with this CPU.
Some details about the new Xiaomi chipset have been revealed, including the fact that the Chinese company will release two variants of Pinecone CPU this year. The two models have the following code names: V670 and V970, while the Mi 5c could launch with the lower-end V670 inside.
Xiaomi’s 10nm chipset to arrive in Q4 2017
The V670 uses four Cortex-A53 large cores and four Cortex-A53 small cores. It will be equipped with Mali-T860 MP4 graphics processing unit with a clock speed of 800MHz. The V670 is expected to use the 28nm manufacturing process, while the higher-end model V970 will be using the 10nm process, the same as Snapdragon 835 or Samsung’s Exynos 8895.
Xiaomi V970 might come with four Cortex-A73 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores, delivering an enhanced performance compared to the V670. It might arrive in Q4 this year and feature a minimum clock frequency of 2.0GHz, while the maximum frequency might reach 2.7GHz. Mali 71 MP12 graphics processing unit clocked at 900MHz will offer a greater performance. Xiaomi Mi 5c won’t incorporate the higher-end Pinecone CPU, but the chip might be featured in the upcoming Mi 6s and Mi Note 3.
With this move, Xiaomi will be reducing its dependence on Qualcomm for chipsets, as more and more companies, including Samsung, are starting to produce their own CPUs. Qualcomm has been involved in a number of antitrust lawsuits; in the most recent one Apple accuses Qualcomm of charging excessive royalties for chipsets.