Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun announced on Chinese social platform Weibo last night that Xiaomi’s self-developed smartphone SoC chip, the Xuanjie O1 (Xring O1), will debut in late May. While specific details such as the manufacturing process remain undisclosed, the chip is likely to power the upcoming Xiaomi 15S Pro, the company’s 15th anniversary flagship phone.
Why it matters: The Xuanjie O1 marks Xiaomi’s return to in-house smartphone chip design, a move seen as strategically significant as its EV push in recent years. It reflects the company’s ambitions to reduce reliance on third-party suppliers, strengthen core tech capabilities, and gain control over long-term competitiveness.
Details: Xuanjie O1 is Xiaomi’s second self-developed smartphone main processor since it released the Surge S1 eight years ago.
- In February 2017, Xiaomi unveiled its first self-developed smartphone chip, the Surge S1, which debuted in the Mi 5C smartphone. With this move, Xiaomi became the fourth smartphone brand in the world, after Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, to develop its own mobile chipset in-house.
- However, the Surge S1 did not achieve success in the market at the time due to its weak modem capabilities, according to Chinese media outlet Icsmart. It did not support China Unicom’s 3G or 4G networks, nor did it support any of China Telecom’s network standards.
- Xuanjie O1 is expected to be built on TSMC’s 3nm process and feature an 8-core or 10-core tri-cluster CPU architecture, including the high-performance Arm Cortex-X925 core, according to sources cited in the aforementioned Icsmart report. It will integrate the Immortalis-G925 GPU, with overall performance potentially comparable to that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen2. For connectivity, it may use an external 5G modem from either MediaTek or Unisoc.
Context: Shanghai Xuanjie Technology is a chip design subsidiary founded by Xiaomi in 2021, focused on developing high-performance smartphone main processors to drive Xiaomi’s independent innovation in the semiconductor field. The new Xuanjie O1 chip was developed by Xuanjie, and was named after the company rather than becoming the latest in the Surge series.
- The company is headed by Xiaomi vice president Zeng Xuezhong, former CEO of Chinese chip firm Unisoc. As of June 2023, it had a registered capital of RMB 1.92 billion ($270 million).
