Google may ditch Qualcomm and use its own chipsets in Pixel phones in 2021

Google is no stranger to using custom silicon on its Pixel phones. The search giant introduced the Pixel Visual Core image processor in the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 series, and on the Pixel 4 it unveiled a Neural Core that leveraged machine learning.

Google has been linked with making custom chipsets to power its phones for a while now, and a new report from Axios suggests it made "significant progress" in developing its own chipset. The publication says Google may use its in-house solution to power Pixel phones as early as 2021, and that these designs could even end up on Chromebooks.

Axios says Google developed the chipset — which is codenamed Whitechapel — in partnership with Samsung, and the custom design is set to be manufactured on Samsung LSI's 5nm manufacturing node. For context, this year's Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset is built on a 7nm node, and a shrink to the 5nm node is likely for next year's designs.

The Whitechapel chipset is said to offer eight ARM cores and include features designed for Google's machine-learning technology. It is estimated that the chipset will also include custom silicon designed to improve the performance of "always-on" capabilities of Google Assistant. Qualcomm offers a similar feature on its Snapdragon chipset, so it makes sense for Google to include a custom co-processor to do the same.

Google going the custom route is a huge deal for the brand. Thus far, only Apple has managed to achieve vertical integration on its phones, and all Android device makers — including Google — had to use either Qualcomm designs or come up with in-house solutions, like Samsung with its Exynos series and Huawei with Kirin. While Samsung and Huawei use their own chipsets, they have to rely on Google for the software, and that's why it is interesting to see Google design its own chipsets.

Google has the potential to integrate hardware and software seamlessly by designing its own chipset, and the company has lured several chip designers away from Apple and Intel over the last two years. So it does look likely that Google is invested in its own silicon, and the fact that the chipset may launch as early as next year makes things very exciting for the 2021 Pixel series.