Sony reportedly to develop in-house processors for Xperia devices

According to a report published on Digitimes, Sony Mobile will develop their own mobile processors for its Xperia devices. If this is true, Sony will join the likes of Apple, Samsung and Huawei. Taiwan-based Global Unichip has reportedly been given the task of developing the AP from Sony,

LG is also reported to be developing their own mobile processor for their future devices. LG's first attempt, the Nuclun, which was used in LG G3, did not take off due to poor performace. Its second attempt, the Nuclun 2, is being designed by LG and manufactured by Intel and TSMC which is expected in 2016. If Digitimes report is true, Global Unichip is reworking LG’s chip.

Apple designs its custom AX processors, Samsung designs its Exynos chipsets and Huawei has its own line of Kirin processor. Samsung recently introduced Exynos 8 Octa 14nm 64-bit processor with custom CPU cores that will likely be used in the upcoming Galaxy S7 flagship. Huawei also introduced its own Kirin 950 Octa-Core 16nm chipset that will power the upcoming Ascend Mate 8, which is due later this month

With more companies opting for home-grown chipset, the mobile chipset industry leaders Qualcomm and MediaTek may come under considerable threat. As of date, Qualcomm Snapdragon processor are used in a wide range of smartphones- from low-performance budget ones to the flagship devices. MediaTek has been giving though competition to Qualcomm, and offers OEMs with slightly low-grade performance at a reduced cost. A number of budget smartphone makers, hence, opt for MediaTek.

Earlier, Sony used Qualcomm processors in its smartphones, but now it has also started using MediaTek chips for some of its low-range smartphones.