Smartphone maker Xiaomi is one of China’s top three investors in semiconductor development on the back of a 10-year, CNY50 billion spending program, according to company Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Lei Jun. Xiaomi achieved the milestone as of April after spending CNY13.5 billion and deploying 2,500 research-and-development (R&D) staff to work on its XRing O1 system-on-a-chip (SoC). The new integrated circuit (IC) is expected to become China’s first 3-nanometer chip and the country’s most powerful smartphone SoC, according to a report by Chinese media outlet Icsmart. “Chips represent the key race for us to make breakthroughs in hardcore technology,” Lei wrote. His post also confirmed that the XRing O1 was based on the 3-nm lithography process in semiconductor manufacturing, but did not reveal which chip foundry was contracted to build the new IC. Xiaomi launched the XRing O1, new smartphones and tablets, as showcased the company’s first electric sports utility vehicle, the YU7 last week.
Lei’s social media post reflects Xiaomi’s growing efforts to match the advances in semiconductor development of its major smartphone rivals Apple, Samsung Electronics and Huawei Technologies. Xiaomi was ranked the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor in the first quarter, with shipments of 41.8 million units and a global market share of 13.7%, according to research firm IDC. The Chinese firm ranked behind Samsung and Apple during that period. Xiaomi appears unlikely to overtake Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), mainland China’s top contract chipmaker, in terms of R&D spending. Shanghai-based SMIC’s capital spending on semiconductor development totaled USD765.3 million in 2024. Privately-held Huawei, which has been on a U.S. trade blacklist since May 2019, has also increased spending on advanced IC development amid U.S. sanctions. The Shenzhen-based firm, however, did not break down its overall R&D spending of CNY179.7 billion last year.
In his social media post, Lei recounted Xiaomi’s difficulties during the development of its own mobile SoC, the Surge S1. Launched in 2017, the Surge S1 reportedly failed in the market because of its weak baseband capabilities. In telecommunications, baseband is used to encode both digital and analogue signals, enabling efficient data transfer over networks. Lei, 55, attributed the firm’s renewed push in IC development to its goal of becoming “a great hardcore technology” company. He said semiconductors represented “a summit that has to be ascended and a fight that has to be fought” to reach the company’s goal, the South China Morning Post reports.
