Xiaomi Rumored to Feature Its Own SoC in “Meri”

Early this year, a source reported that Xiaomi was planning to use in-house chips in their smartphones later this year. The chips will reportedly be used in lower-priced phones released in the second half of the year.

This move has actually been in the works for a while. Back in 2014 a company called Beijing Pinecone Electronics which is controlled by Xiaomi signed an agreement with Chinese chip designer Leadcore Technology Ltd, a subsidiary of state backed Datang Telecom, to jointly design 4G multiple mode chips.



meri-antutupinecone


Weibo account @Science and Technology suspects the unknown chip in the Xiaomi Meri is one of the chips from the company. An information page from the phone’s Antutu result also shows the processor has a Mali-T860 GPU and that the Meri has a 5.46” 1080p screen. Another image which shows the EXIF data of a picture taken with the phone’s camera also has the word PINECONE.

The move by Xiaomi to start using their own processors will come as bad news for chip-makers Qualcomm and Mediatek who supply the tech giant with chips for all its phones. You can imagine how much money the company would have saved if the best seller, the Redmi Note 3 had a Xiaomi chip.