Apple, Google Making Chipsets? Pixel 3 Might Have A Custom-Made SoC

Google has hired a key Apple engineer, Manu Gulati, who worked on Apple’s A-series chipsets for iPhones, iPads and Apple TV, Variety reported Wednesday. Gulati has worked as a micro-architect for Apple prior to taking up the position of lead SoC architect at Google.

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The hiring is a part of Google’s effort to tighten its control over Pixel hardware, the report added. In addition to Gulati, the search giant is planning to hire more chipset experts to help design chipsets for future Pixel handsets. Gulati was one of the brains behind Apple’s A-series chipsets, which the company designs in-house to optimize the performance of its devices and has done so since 2010. He is actually named as one of the inventors on 15 of Apple’s chip-related patents.

Google, meanwhile, has had a different strategy for now — it has been working on software for its flagships, but most of its hardware is sourced from other manufacturers, such as LG, Motorola, and Samsung. Qualcomm has been the choice of chipset for many of the company’s past flagships. Hiring Gulati and his position at Google, therefore, marks a significant change in strategy for Google as the company is finally venturing into making its own hardware.

Google had a chance to make its own devices in the past when it acquired Motorola in 2012. However, the company chose to only retain Motorola’s patents and resell it to Lenovo in 2014.

So, what’s changed? First and foremost, Google’s own smartphone strategy changed majorly last year — instead of designing phones for Android enthusiasts with the Nexus series, the company actually put a mainstream flagship device, the Pixel. Unlike Nexus, Pixel-series devices are actually competing with major flagships such the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Apple iPhone 7 for market share. Furthermore, one big development was the 10nm processor technology-based Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor made by Samsung and Qualcomm. By pushing out 10nm processors with the Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung has easily retained the upper hand in the smartphone industry, at least for 2017. The fact that the company actually restricted Qualcomm from selling the processor until the S8 hit the market speaks for Samsung’s control over the technology.

In addition, Qualcomm’s squabbles with Apple has delineated that the latter might not be getting its hands on the technology any sooner.

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Both the developments haven’t gone unnoticed by tech giants. Before, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, processors used to be an equal opportunity investment for smartphone companies. The development of the processor with Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy S8 getting first to go at the technology is something which might have swayed Google to start working on its own processors. While we may not see Google’s own chipsets in the 2017 Pixel 2 flagship series, chances are that the next flagship, Pixel 3 might feature the company’s own chipsets.