Apple, Huawei, and Samsung were the only smartphone brands that had their own mobile processors. Recently, Google started developing its own smartphone chipsets in partnership with Samsung's System LSI division. While LG and Xiaomi did some work in the area, they never shipped mass-market products with their in-house processors. Now, one more smartphone brand is reportedly developing its own chipsets.
According to tipster Ice Universe (@UniverseIce), OPPO is developing its own smartphone chipsets, and its first smartphone with its in-house chipset is expected to launch in 2024. The Chinese firm reportedly has thousands of engineers working on the SoCs. It is possible that other BBK Electronics brands, including OnePlus, Realme, Vivo, and iQOO, would use OPPO's chipsets. OPPO has already developed a few chipsets for smartphones that improve camera processing, display smoothness, and wireless connectivity.
It is still unclear if OPPO would bring its in-house chipset directly to its high-end phones or if it would start with its affordable and mid-range devices. Qualcomm is currently the absolute best in terms of smartphone chipset performance and efficiency in the Android segment. However, MediaTek is closing in, and its Dimensity 9000 series chips have been pretty impressive.
Samsung (System LSI), which was once the second-best in the Android smartphone chipset space, has fallen behind. The Exynos 2100 and Exynos 2200 chips haven't been as power efficient as their MediaTek and Qualcomm counterparts. GPUs inside Exynos chipsets have also been not as powerful, and they throttle quite fast under sustained load. Hence, Samsung MX (which makes smartphones) has decided to form its own chipset development division with some of the best engineers.
