Google is finally doing this!

 Google is finally doing this!

Credit:9to5Google

Traditionally we see the Google Pixel release  towards the latter half of the year and Google    is not changing their release schedule with the  Pixel 6 which means we can expect the launch to happen in early October.Few things about  the Pixel 6 already know, such as a new front design    where the punch hole camera is not only going  to be smaller than last year but Google is also    changing the position from far left to the middle. Also, the handset is expected to have an in-display fingerprint scanner.

 Last year, Google's CEO said that they are doing some  deeper investments in hardware” and that    there was a “terrific roadmap ahead” in 2021. He was referring to and this deeper investment in hardware is  how Google is planning to make the Pixel 6 stand out from the giants, Samsung and Apple. News broke out last year that Google has apparently been working with Samsung to  develop a new chipset for its devices. The new Google chipset would reportedly  appear in Pixel phones as soon as this year,    which means the Pixel 6 might not have Qualcomm power. Turns out the report was on point, 9to5Google has obtained some internal Google  documentation which reveals Pixel 6 will be the first Google product to have this new GS101 chip from Google. GS refers to Google Silicon and GS101 is what they are calling the chip internally.  The document reveals that this codename is also directly connected to Samsung, including  references to Samsung Exynos which means the Google silicon and Samsung's Exynos will have some  commonalities including software components.

 This is in line with last year's report, that  Google is teaming up with Samsung, which is    providing design support and manufacturing for the project. The report says the Google SoC is    an eight-core ARM processor with hardware  "optimized for Google's machine learning    technology" and the always-on capabilities of Google Assistant. The chip would be built at    Samsung's foundries on the firm's 5nm process. Google developing its own phone processor would    mean dumping the Qualcomm SoCs it usually uses.  Although high-end Snapdragon chips used by the    vast majority of smartphone makers provide  very high general-purpose as well as graphics    performance, therefore enabling manufacturers to innovate with their cameras and software. However,    because they are off-the-shelf, they do  not carry any custom-designed exclusive hardware that could differentiate a device in terms of performance and capabilities.

 

Companies like Apple, Huawei and Samsung have developed their own smartphone SoCs for a    while now. Apple went even further and built its own highly-integrated SoC for its Macs, which appeared to be quite powerful when compared to x86 processors from Intel. Furthermore, its M1 chip carries numerous special-purpose accelerators that enable performance and capabilities not accessible to off-the-shelf CPUs, which changes the way Apple's processors can be used. So it's only natural for Google to get into building the chips that its OS runs on. It    will allow them to optimize the chip design  to how the next version of their OS and Apps will need to run most efficiently. Also, Google's current chips that include Pixel Neural core which is camera silicon will work better on Google's in-house designed main chip since Google can tweak controls, however, they want which is something not possible with off-the-shelf Qualcomm's chips. So an SoC division would give Google some much-needed flexibility when it comes to hardware. This will allow Google to innovate  its Android and Chrome OS platforms quickly and stay competitive with Apple and Microsoft  since it is considerably easier to implement   certain features into in-house designed silicon than persuade a third party to incorporate something into their SoC. Also, this means the Pixel 6 will have a proper in-house flagship processor and not a midrange one.