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Google eventually has plans to shift away from semi-custom chip designs for its Pixel lineup of smartphones, and just like Apple, it intends to release its first-ever fully custom SoC. Unfortunately, that journey has seen its fair share of roadblocks, with Google reportedly delaying the custom silicon’s release by a whole year.
Google is now expected to unveil its custom solution in 2025, according to people familiar with the matter
The search engine giant originally had plans to release the fully custom chip codenamed ‘Redondo’ sometime in 2024, according to The Information. In the process, the company would replace the semi-custom design that it uses from Samsung. However, a small portion of the paywalled report did not mention the reason for this delay, instead mentioning that the new codename of the SoC is Laguna, and according to people familiar with the matter, the launch will happen in 2025.
Several phone makers have attempted to adopt the same approach that Apple has followed for many years; launch a chip sporting custom CPU and GPU designs. Xiaomi was one of the first entities to abandon this path, followed by OPPO, with reports stating that such firms and their engineers experienced development difficulties and other problems. These revelations indicate that Apple’s custom chip division is several years ahead of the competition, and only Qualcomm will be better positioned to take on the California-based giant thanks to its Nuvia acquisition, but sadly, we will only see those custom Oryon cores in action next year.
Even if Google was to scale past the custom CPU and GPU design issues, it still has to pick a foundry that will undertake the responsibility of mass producing that chip in higher quantities and at a cutting-edge process so Google can have an edge against the competition. For many years, TSMC has established an unbeatable foundation, which is why it has mass-produced wafers for Apple for quite a while, so the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer will be the obvious choice for Google. However, will it foot the bill, knowing it will pay millions for custom chips while having a near-negligible smartphone market share?
For now, Google still has some time to get its Pixel smartphone distribution network in order, as millions worldwide still want to experience that vanilla version of Android. A couple of years down the road, a fully custom chip can give Google the ability to tailor exclusive features and allow for better battery life by having complete control over the hardware and software. For the time being, though, we will get the Tensor G3 in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, which sports a 9-core CPU and will likely have worse performance than the competition when it officially launches.
News Source: The Information
