Opposition As The Verge reports, it is developing its own high-end chips, which should be implemented in its flagships by early 2023. Oppo is reportedly looking to use TSMC’s advanced 3nm process technology for the chips.
Oppo currently uses chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek like all other Chinese smartphone vendors since the crackdown against Huawei.
Xiaomi designed and released a low-end SoC called the Surge S1 for its budget Mi 5C phone in 2017, but since then its chip design efforts have been limited to secondary components such as the image signal processor.
Oppo will be the latest major smartphone maker to wield its own SoC design. Recently, Google launched the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, its first phones with a custom SoC called Tensor.
Apple and Samsung also design their own smartphone chips, as did Huawei before the US sanctions slashed its mobile business.
According to IDC, Oppo is the fourth largest smartphone maker in the world by shipments. If major companies like Oppo adopt the SoC design themselves, Qualcomm could be out of business.
It is also part of the BBK Electronics group which shares a supply chain with Vivo, OnePlus and Realme, which means if Oppo comes with an in-house chipset we may see it down the line in devices from the above brands .
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