Like Apple, Oppo is looking to design its own smartphone chipset starting next year with TSMC building the component using its 6nm process node.
), Oppo's Integrated Circuit design subsidiary, Shanghai Zheku, is working on an Applications Processor , for Oppo. The chip will reportedly be built by TSMC using the foundry's 6nm process node and will go into mass production in 2023.
Oppo is already looking ahead to 2024 when it plans to design a more powerful and energy-efficient chip that will be assembled by TSMC using its 4nm process node. This chipset will also be integrated with a 5G modem. It is not clear whether Oppo will be using modems designed by third-party firms like Qualcomm and Samsung, or whether it will be designing the modem itself.
The only information we have about Oppo's self-designed AP is the 6nm process node that it will be manufactured on next year. That would suggest that the phones that the chip will be driving next year will probably not be flagship models. Most likely next year's chip production will be a test for Oppo to see whether it should continue to design better chips every year eventually working its way up to designing the chips for its own flagship phones.
Once upon a time, Huawei was another firm that designed its own chips via its HiSilicon unit. But in 2020 the U.S. Commerce Department changed its export rules to make it extremely difficult for the Chinese manufacturer to obtain cutting-edge chips for its phones, even ones that it designed itself. Under the rule change, any foundry using American technology to build cutting-edge chips cannot ship such chips to Huawei.
with all 5G technology disabled. Huawei had to use these chips on its photography-based P50 flagship. Back in the day when Huawei was allowed to have its own Kirin chips powering the firm's high-end phones, the manufacturer was TSMC's second-largest customer behind only Apple.Get the most important news, reviews and deals in mobile tech delivered straight to your inbox