Xiaomi has unveiled its self-developed new mobile system-on-chip (SoC), the "Xring O3." Coming just a year after it introduced its first in-house chipset, the O1, the new chip is also set to be manufactured by TSMC using its 3-nanometer (nm) process technology.
According to Reuters on the 24th (local time), the chip is expected to be built into a flagship foldable phone that Xiaomi will release. Its shipment target is around 200,000 to 300,000 units.
Xiaomi has been rolling out new products every year under a plan to reduce its reliance on suppliers. It began developing large in-house chips in 2021 and declared it would invest at least 50 billion yuan (7 billion dollars, about 9.7 trillion won) over 10 years for that purpose. Reuters said, "Xiaomi has so far poured more than 20 billion yuan (3 billion dollars, about 4.2 trillion won) into Xring chip development, and its semiconductor design team has grown from 2,500 last year to more than 3,000."
Results are also emerging. In a conference call for its earnings release last week, Xiaomi said cumulative shipments of smartphones, tablets, and watches equipped with the Xring O1 had surpassed 1 million units since launch. Sources said Xiaomi sold about 150,000 of the Xring O1-based smartphones released last May.
Xiaomi is focusing on developing its own chips because doing so can strengthen its control over product specifications and boost its bargaining power with component suppliers. As competition in premium smartphones intensifies, device makers are differentiating their products and reducing reliance on suppliers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek. In particular, memory and component costs have risen rapidly recently, pushing up product prices and dampening demand. Samsung Electronics, Apple, and Huawei are also currently developing their own chips.
Xiaomi's expansion into the relatively higher-priced foldable phone market is expected to intensify its competition with Huawei. According to market research firm Smart Analytics Global, Huawei shipped 1.6 million foldable phones in China in the second quarter, taking a 68% market share.
Xiaomi plans to have two other Xring chips produced by TSMC as well: the 6nm neural processing unit (NPU) "Xring O100," which powers Xiaomi's large language model (LLM) "MiMo," and the 3nm chip "Xring D100" for autonomous driving. According to Xiaomi, the O3 has already entered mass production, while the O100 and D100 have completed development and are slated to be applied next year.
