Google is developing their own mobile chip with Samsungs' SLSI division, this is confirmed by several sources, XDA among them, so I think we can safely say It's no longer a rumour.
The chip is internally known as Whitechapel (GS101) in a shared platform called "Slider", and like Apple's M1 it will be used in many of Google's devices like Chromebooks and of course the upcoming Pixel 6.
The new chip features an octa-core ARM CPU with two Cortex-A78 + two Cortex-A76 + four Cortex-A55 cores, a standard ARM Mali GPU on a 5nm manufacturing process. So it will roughly be comparable with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 series.
"Having seen some internal documentation related to Google’s next Pixel devices, XDA can now corroborate that Google is working on new GS101 silicon for its 2021 Pixel phones. According to our source, it seems the SoC will feature a 3 cluster setup with a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit). Google also refers to its next Pixel devices as “dauntless-equipped phones”, which we believe refers to them having an integrated Titan M security chip (code-named “Citadel)."
This chip in itself is no reason to get all excited, but the reason why they do it is. This way Google will have control over driver updates and be able to provide longer support from 3 major updates to maybe even 5 generations.
One of the things that has irritated me for a long time is Qualcomm limiting driver updates. It caused for example Sony to no longer support my beloved Xperias, but also the Oneplus One and X drivers development were shortlived when Qualcomm jumped to the 64bit platform, severely limiting Custom ROM developers (old folk will remember Sultans' camera HAL well, for example)
Just imagine what it means to custom ROM developers, the scene has been in decline for a long time, this may just spark new life in that area as well...
What do you think, will this have an impact on the mobile phone world?
Please leave your thoughts below...
Source: XDAClick to expand...
