Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Technology and chairman of Kingsoft Corp., delivers a speech at a launch event in Beijing, China. (Photo : Getty Images/Ethan Miller)
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is preparing to introduce its own brand of syste-on-chip (SoC), currently dubbed as Pinecone, which will soon power its upcoming iteration. Ahead of the processor's announcement in Tuesday, the company revealed few video teasers on what will be expected to the SoC.
Xiaomi revealed its plans to unveil its own in-house chipset, "Pinecone," which will reportedly be produced by Beijing Pinecone Electronics. The said company was paid approximately $15 million by Xiaomi to acquire mobile processor technologies from Datang subsidiary Leadcore Technology Ltd.
Xiaomi's very own mobile chipsets are set to rival other infamous names of in-house processors such as MediaTek and Qualcomm for chips. And according to recent leaks, Xiaomi has two Pinecone SoCs in the pipeline, the V670 and V790 processors.
According to NDTV, the V670 will be an octa-core processor with "four high-frequency Cortex-A53 cores, and four Cortex-A53 low-powered cores." It is accompanied by an ARM Mali-T860 MP2 GPU. This mobile chipset is tipped to be made on a 28nm process with a much lighter chassis.
Apart from the Pinecone V670 processor, the company will also reveal its high-end SoC, the Pinecone V790 processor. The Pinecone V970 SoC will allegedly be built by Samsung on a 10nm process, WCCFTech reported. It will be armed with four Cortex-A73 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores, and paired with a Mali G71 MP12 GPU.
On another note, the company has already released multiple teasers for its upcoming processors. For the uninitiated, the first video posted on its Youtube Channel under "Xiaomi Today" handle featured two-time World Memory Championships winner Wang Feng. Now the latest teaser displays how a Rubik's Cube champion finishes unscrambling a cube in just 18 seconds.
What the latest teaser might suggest are the "Pinecone" mobile chipsets' capabilities. In a direct interpretation of the company's earlier teaser, the video also hinted the processor's memory power with Feng doing an impossible memory challenge.
The "Pinecone" processor is rumored to be initially included in the company's Mi 5c smartphone, although Xiaomi has not released any confirmation yet. According to the official invite, the Xiaomi "Pinecone" processor announcement event will start at 2pm China time (11:30am IST) on Tuesday, and will be held at Beijing National Convention Center.
