Google Pixel 6 could ditch Qualcomm silicon in favor of an in-house chipset

Google’s Pixel phones have exclusively been powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors since 2016’s first-generation Pixel device. The company has added silicon like its Pixel Neural Core to the Pixel 4, but the chipset was still a flagship Snapdragon processor.

However, Axios now reports that Google is working with Samsung to develop a chipset that could power Pixel phones as soon as next year. The outlet adds that the chipset is codenamed Whitechapel and could eventually show up inside Chromebooks, saying that Google received the first working versions of the processor already.

Axios says the new processor is designed by Google and will be manufactured on Samsung’s 5nm process, citing a source familiar with Google’s plans in this regard. Other reported technical details include eight Arm CPU cores, Google’s own machine learning silicon, and hardware devoted to the Assistant’s always-listening technology.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Google and Samsung teaming up for a processor either. A poster on a Korean forum (h/t: SamMobile) claimed last week that Google was teaming up with Samsung’s Exynos division for a chipset.

The forum post goes on to say that the chipset would be Google-branded and offer a 5nm design. It was also claimed that the new chipset would have eight Arm Cortex cores (two unannounced Cortex-A78 cores, two Cortex-A76 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores), an Arm MP20 GPU based on its Borr architecture, and Google’s own NPU and visual core.

Would you like to see Google adopt Samsung’s Exynos chipsets in its Pixel phones? Sound off in the comments.