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Report: Google Wants To Design Its Own Smartphone Chips (arstechnica.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the remember-when-google-was-a-search-engine dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google has been stepping up its efforts to build higher quality Android phones, and one thing holding it back is Qualcomm's SoC technology. According to two reports in The Information (paywalled: [1], [2]) Google is now looking for other partners, and may even jump into chip design itself. The company has already done some design work, hoping to co-develop it with a manufacturer. "The new chips are reportedly needed for future Android features that Google hopes to release 'in the next few years.' By designing its own chips, Google can make sure the right amount of horsepower gets assigned to all the right places and remove bottlenecks that would slow down these new features. The report specifically calls out 'virtual and augmented reality' as use cases for the new chips."

Another big area Google wants better hardware for is video processing tech. The article notes, "Qualcomm has a near monopoly on Android SoCs, but it is more marketing driven than performance driven and has been doing a disservice to the mobile space lately. It rushed to get 64-bit support out the door when it was beaten to the punch by Apple, which resulted in the very hot Snapdragon 810 SoC."

15 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Google could buy Qualcomm... by faragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... and fill the "Q" letter in their "Alphabet".

    1. Re:Google could buy Qualcomm... by LifesABeach · · Score: 2

      Couldn't they just "Google it?"

    2. Re:Google could buy Qualcomm... by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also - did you read the article and understand the point?

      Qualcomm is the only SoC manufacturer for Android pushing the high end - MediaTek, etc are focusing on the mid-range. Google wants to push the high end to compete with the latest Apple chips, and MTK and others aren't even close. Right now it's either push Qualcomm or do it themselves.

  2. I don't buy it by kaiser423 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't buy these reports at all. I just don't see it. I would imagine that Google would like to partner a bit closer with some of the chip vendors -- get some low power extensions added, more direct hardware accelerations of some of the effects that are done in Android, maybe help define some other extensions, etc. But I seriously doubt that they're looking to get into the chip design business. To do so they would have to buy a slew of chip designers, and we just haven't seen them hiring or acquiring in that arena.

    Chip design is very hard and unforgiving. Google knows this, and can't be looking to jump into the business. They might want to help tailor something, but that would be about it...

    1. Re:I don't buy it by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Google needs to have a hypervisor, VMs, and have all this work seamlessly for Joe Sixpack. Virtualization takes the right hardware to pull off.

      That's the first time I've ever heard anyone ask for VMs running on a phone.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:I don't buy it by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Yet somehow, everyone who bought an Android phone is using google's JVM. Guess what the VM in JVM stands for?

      That's great, so if you throw that in another VM, it would be a VM running in a VM.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:I don't buy it by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      Yo, dawg...

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:I don't buy it by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      That's the first time I've ever heard anyone ask for VMs running on a phone.

      ARM supports virtualization. It's the mode above kernel mode, and ARM even has sample code to setup a VM instance using the ARM hypervisor.

  3. Well played by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tracking you will be much more efficient. Built in, unblockable analytics.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. Near monopoly?! by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Qualcomm has a near monopoly on Android SoCs"

    What about Mediatek, Samsung (Exynos SoCs in many of their top-selling phones and tablets), the Chinese fabless semicons like Rockchip, Allwinner, etc, even Intel (Asus Zen phones/tablets)? Statistics please without qualifiers like, a near monopoly on tablets sold by LG, Moto, and so-and-so company.

  5. Note the source is "The Information"... by jddeluxe · · Score: 2

    These pukes make up some sensational shit 3 or 4 times a year, get it re-blogged on all the Android and many tech sites and morons subscribe to read the bullshit stories...

    Nothing to see here, move along.....

  6. Re:If you think I'll allow a Google chip in my pho by Dahamma · · Score: 2

    Do you have an Android phone now? If not, no one cares about your opinion on this. If so, why on earth would you be more worried about a Google chip than a Google ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM?

  7. Re:If you think I'll allow a Google chip in my pho by Dahamma · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And it's totally as easy to implement an entire TCP/IP stack, file system, memory, and app code scanner in hardware that would be able to report information to Google without ANY OS/driver support.

  8. Re:If you think I'll allow a Google chip in my pho by Dahamma · · Score: 2

    And if you are going to post nonsense as AC, consider the option of not posting.

  9. Re:If you think I'll allow a Google chip in my pho by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    why on earth would you be more worried about a Google chip than a Google ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM?

    Because Google publishes the code to their operating system, but they're not going to publish the netlists for their processors. The latest intel processors have TPM built into the CPU, and they even have voice recognition software built into the CPU that is still powered even when the machine is ostensibly asleep, allegedly for the purpose of waking the machine up. Is that what you want in your phone?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"