Of late, a number of tech companies have started to manufacture chips on their own instead of relying on a supplier, which, more often than not, is one of the global chip-manufacturing companies Qualcomm. Previously, Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, all big names in the arena of technology, had announced that they would self-develop chips that would be used in their devices.
Google, too, jumped the bandwagon. On August 3rd, Google Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai posted on Twitter about Google’s self-developed chip called Tensor. This announcement had triggered a range of speculations that Google has stopped cooperating with Qualcomm. The chip-making company finally addressed the speculations and responded that the company will continue with its cooperation with Google, especially with its Snapdragon-related products.
It goes without mentioning that Google is one of the impactful companies to join the new self-developed chip camp. However, that does not signify the end of the cooperative business taking place between Qualcomm and the search engine. Since Tensor will be used in the upcoming Pixel 6 series, other non-flagship products such as the upcoming Pixel 5a and its successors will be equipped with the Snapdragon chipset.
However, some of the Pixel models that are yet to be launched still need to use the Xiaolong 5G communication module because those devices need to be equipped with cellular network connections. Google’s brand new Tensor chip is manufactured in collaboration with Samsung and its 5nm manufacturing process. Therefore, it is also possible for South Korean companies to mass-produce 5G communication modules for use in future smartphones.
The custom-made Google chip is codenamed Whitechapel. Some sources have indicated that Whitechapel, aka Tensor, is a tad bit slower than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888. However, at this moment, Google’s priority might not be to accelerate its performance but perhaps the company is targeting other areas. These areas will include improvements in computational photography, videography, enhancements in speech recognition, security, and more.
