To weather the storm of sluggish sales and declining market share, Sony Mobile Communications and LG Electronics plan on developing their own processors in their future smartphones. Citing industry sources, a Taiwanese System on Chip (SoC) Design Foundry, Global Chip, is rumored to have bagged sizeable orders from Asian handset makers for development of Application Processors. Qualcomm and MediaTek, two of the competing chipset manufacturers are both in talks with TSMC, a major shareholder in Global Chip, to build chipsets based on their latest Integrated FanOut (InFO) architecture. This enables cost-effective scaling with thinner profiles for the devices they are powering. Apple has almost finalized on its A10 chipset being manufactured by TSMC that we can expect towards the latter half of 2016.
The news assumes more significance since Google is rumored to have held discussions with a few chip makers to design and develop chips to their design standards and specifications. Designing chips in-house would allow greater leeway for smartphone makers to minimize their cost of production. This would also mean the companies can then develop unique apps compatible with these processors leading to increased hardware utilization and optimization. Both Sony and LG install custom UIs on top of stock Android with their own dedicated apps and unique features.
This recent trend of major phone companies planning to design chipsets in-house comes at a time when Qualcomm, one of the most prominent chipmakers, recently announced its next-generation Snapdragon 820 chipset to power smartphones in 2016. Qualcomm and MediaTek have both been competing with each other for market dominance. Huawei and Samsung are two mobile phone makers who use their own processors to their flagship models. Huawei uses Kirin chipset while Samsung employs Exynos processors to their flagship products. Apple has stayed unique in that they have only used chipsets designed and manufactured especially for iPhones.
This recent trend of major phone companies planning to design chipsets in-house comes at a time when Qualcomm, one of the most prominent chipmakers, recently announced its next-generation Snapdragon 820 chipset to power smartphones in 2016. Qualcomm and MediaTek have both been competing with each other for market dominance.
With the advent of latest technologies like virtual reality and fingerprint scanner functionalities starting to find its way into mobile devices, it sure seems smartphone manufacturers want to come up with the best product in the market in the most cost-effective way possible. All these recent developments will make 2016 an interesting year for manufacturers and customers alike.