In the illustration in this photo, the Xiaomi Xring O1 chipset logo will be seen in Beijing, China on May 19, 2025. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun announced on the evening of May 15th that its own self-developed smartphone SoC, Xring 01, will be officially released in late May.
VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images
China’s technology giant Xiaomi We are planning a new high-end chip for our smartphones. apple.
Xiaomi Vice President Xu Fei discussed the company’s semiconductor ambitions and detailed the product roadmap.
Xiaomi’s focus on developing its own chips reflects efforts by top smartphone manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and Huawei.
Last year, Xiaomi launched a system-on-chip called Xring 01 for its own smartphone. It is based on a 3 nanometer manufacturing process and is one of the most advanced on the market. A system-on-chip, or SOC, is a type of semiconductor that contains a variety of components that help to run devices.
At the time, Xiaomi had pledged to invest at least 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) in order to develop its own chips over the next decade.
Xu said the company is “planning ahead” for next-generation chips, but it cannot promise to release new SOCs every year.
“We’re newcomers here. We need to learn, we need to plan,” Xu said.
Apple first launched its own system-on-chip in 2010 under the A-series Monica. Every year we release new A-series semiconductors, and the latest series called the A19, which is featured on iPhone 17 models.
Xu has revealed the ideas behind Xiaomi’s release timeline and how it relates to the company’s return on investment. Xu said 1 million units will be shipped to Xuring 01, but Xiaomi said it would need to produce 10 million units per chip release to break even for its business.
“So for us, we probably know that SOC needs to have 10 years of patience to eventually break down,” Xu told CNBC. “So for the first time you need to make sure your experience is adequate. Performance is sufficient.”
Why Xiaomi designs chips
SOCs are an important part of smartphones that behave like the brain of devices. Apple has successfully designed its own chips because it has more control over the integration between hardware and software.
This means that the hardware can be tuned to run the software more efficiently, creating a better experience for the user.
Xiaomi has its own Android-based operating system called Hyperos and a set of artificial intelligence applications called Hyperai. Custom-made chips for your own devices help to power this software more efficiently.
“We bring vertical expertise to provide a tightly integrated experience with Hyperos and Hyperai into an ecosystem similar to Apple and Google,” Contope Research partner Neil Shah told CNBC.
Xiaomi is a major smartphone player, but it sells products ranging from smartwatches to rice cookers, refrigerators and electric vehicles. Developing SOCs for smartphones gives you the expertise to develop silicon for other products, Shah says.
Where does it leave Qualcomm and MediaTek?
Xiaomi smartphones currently rely on chip combinations from US companies Qualcomm Taiwanese company MediaTek.
For example, the Xiaomi 17 smartphone, launched this week, features Qualcomm’s latest SoC.
Xiaomi’s Xu said that even though the company is developing its own semiconductors, it is still trying to continue using its use of Qualcomm and MediaTek products.
“For Qualcomm, Mediatek, they are very good partners. We’ve been working for 15 years, so we’ll continue this path. At the same time, we choose the right product to try our chipset.
“So we made it very clear to our partners. Don’t worry too much.”
