Xiaomi is pulling back the curtain on its very own smartphone chip

What you need to know

• Xiaomi is stepping up big with its own chip, the XRING 01, aiming to build more phone tech in-house and stay ahead of the pack.
• CEO Lei Jun revealed the chip’s name on Weibo, with a launch expected before May wraps up.
• The XRING 01 is said to be built on TSMC’s 4nm tech, the same as the top dogs Qualcomm and MediaTek use.

Xiaomi is rolling out its own smartphone chip called the XRING 01, signaling the company's growing intention to build more of its phone tech from the ground up and pushing hard to stay ahead of the race.

The company's co-founder, Lei Jun, took to Weibo to drop the name of Xiaomi's first in-house smartphone chip. According to Reuters, he also confirmed the chip will make its debut in a device before the end of May.

Breaking from the usual playbook, Xiaomi’s XRING 01 chip is reportedly built on TSMC’s 4nm tech, the same stuff powering today’s top-tier chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek.

Beastly CPU setup

Under the hood, it’s said to rock an octa-core setup in a 1+3+4 layout: a Cortex-X925 core at 3.2GHz, three Cortex-A725s running at 2.6GHz, and four Cortex-A520s cruising at 2.0GHz.

As per industry tipster Digital Chat Station, Xiaomi’s in-house chip is blowing past expectations. Early benchmarks are looking solid, and if the hype holds up, it might even edge out the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in raw performance.

Wary of possible U.S. sanctions, Xiaomi has set up a 1,000-strong task force led by ex-Qualcomm exec Qin Muyun, who came on board back in 2021. The team’s mission is to build out the XRING 01, Xiaomi’s custom application processor, which first popped up as a prototype earlier this year.

Xiaomi has an in-house team that’s been quietly grinding away on custom chips for a while now. The team works to make sure the processors and other key parts are dialed in for Xiaomi’s phones.

Xiaomi 15S Pro likely first to get It

Rumor has it that the Xiaomi 15S Pro will be the first to pack the new XRING 01 chip under the hood. Since the 15 and 15 Ultra are already out in the wild, the 15S lineup looks like Xiaomi’s clever move to spice up the lineup halfway through the cycle.

It is worth mentioning that the XRING 01 isn’t Xiaomi’s first shot at custom chips. Back in 2017, it rolled out the Surge S1 for the Mi 5C. The company even started cooking up the Surge S2 after that but decided to hit pause on its in-house chip plans—until now.