The Birth of XRing O1, the First 3nm Chip in Mainland China

Just now, the highly anticipated Xiaomi’s self-developed flagship 3nm chip, XRing O1, was finally officially released and was directly used in both a mobile phone and a tablet product upon its release.

It is worth mentioning that Xiaomi also unveiled its first self-developed smartwatch chip, XRing T1, today, which integrates Xiaomi’s first self-developed 4G baseband.

Judging from the performance that everyone cares about the most, the single-core CPU performance of XRing O1 is already very close to Apple’s latest A18 Pro, and its multi-core performance even surpasses it. The GPU performance and energy efficiency of O1 are significantly ahead of Apple, and the overall performance of O1 has already ranked among the first echelon of Android flagship mobile phone chips.

Regarding the chip, Lei Jun revealed a lot of details at the press conference. He said that without a sufficient number of devices equipped with large chips, no matter how good the chip is, it will still be a money-losing business. It must be sold in the amount of tens of millions within one or two years to survive. For a 3nm chip like O1 in scale, the investment for each generation is about 1 billion US dollars. If only 1 million units are sold, the average R&D cost of each chip alone will be about 1,000 US dollars (the starting price of the newly released mobile phones and tablets today is about 5,500 yuan).

XRing O1 Outperforms Apple in Some Aspects and Ranks among the First Echelon of Android Flagship Mobile Phone Chips

First of all, let’s directly look at the protagonist of today’s press conference – Xiaomi’s first self-developed flagship mobile phone SoC, XRing O1.

Lei Jun particularly mentioned that at the beginning of developing large chips, they set three goals: the latest process technology, a flagship-level transistor scale, and first-echelon performance and energy efficiency.

Today, XRing O1 has really achieved these three goals. Judging from the performance score, the AnTuTu V10 laboratory score of XRing O1 exceeds 3 million points, which has reached the level of the first echelon of current Android flagship mobile phone chips.

The number of transistors in O1 reaches 19 billion, which is close to that of Apple’s latest generation processor A18 Pro.

O1 uses the same TSMC second-generation 3nm process technology as Apple, which is also the most advanced mass-produced process technology in the field of mobile phone chips at present.

The chip area of O1 is 109mm².

Looking at the chip architecture in detail, the CPU of O1 has a ten-core, four-cluster design, including 2 super-large cores, 4 high-performance cores, 2 energy-efficient cores, and 2 ultra-energy-efficient cores.

The two super-large cores adopt Arm’s latest Cortex-X925 architecture, and their peak performance has increased by 36%, with the highest main frequency reaching 3.9GHz.

The 4 high-performance cores and 2 energy-efficient cores are all A725, with different frequencies, and the 2 ultra-energy-efficient cores are A520. With such a “luxurious” configuration, the single-core performance of the CPU of XRing O1 has broken through 3,000 points, which is already very close to that of Apple A18 Pro, and the multi-core performance score exceeds 9,500 points, surpassing Apple A18 Pro. According to Xiaomi’s official statement, the overall CPU performance of XRing O1 has entered the first echelon.

Performance alone is not enough. The energy efficiency ratio is also the current focus of mobile chips. According to Xiaomi’s official test data, the dual super-large X925 cores of XRing O1 can already achieve power consumption comparable to that of Apple A18 Pro in scenarios with instant high bursts.

The continuous high-performance power consumption of the 4 high-performance cores can also be comparable to that of Apple A18 Pro, and when the 4 energy-efficient cores deal with daily applications, the power consumption can also be close to that of A18 Pro.

It can be seen that Xiaomi has achieved a more optimized energy efficiency curve through the “relay” of the four-cluster cores. In terms of the GPU, Xiaomi’s XRing O1 uses the latest Immortalis-G925 GPU, which is a 16-core graphics processing unit.

In the Manhattan 3.1 test, XRing O1 has a 43% performance improvement compared to A18 Pro, and in the Aztec 1440P test, XRing O1 has a 57% performance improvement compared to A18 Pro.

In terms of GPU energy efficiency, according to Xiaomi’s test data, compared with A18 Pro, the GPU power consumption of XRing O1 has been reduced by 35%. Judging from the energy efficiency curve, the energy efficiency ratio of the GPU of XRing O1 has already exceeded that of Apple A18 Pro.

In addition, XRing O1 also uses the GPU dynamic performance scheduling technology to more precisely “squeeze” the power consumption in scenarios such as high load, light load, low load, and powering off all cores.

On the basis of a significant improvement in performance and energy efficiency, the Xiaomi 15S Pro equipped with XRing O1 has reduced the time consumption by 30.4% compared to the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max in terms of the startup response speed of commonly used applications. After playing mainstream MOBA games in 120-mode for 1 hour, the frame rate of the Xiaomi 15S Pro is 1.5fps higher, and the temperature is 3.2°C lower.

Lei Jun mentioned at the press conference that he had already started to try out the 15S Pro a month ago, and now he can confidently say that O1 is very powerful.

At the end of explaining the performance and energy efficiency of the CPU and GPU, Lei Jun particularly said that everyone should not expect Xiaomi to defeat or crush Apple at once. Apple is still at the world’s top level, and it is very difficult to surpass it even a little bit.

In terms of imaging, Xiaomi’s XRing O1 is equipped with Xiaomi’s fourth-generation self-developed ISP, and a very intuitive effect it brings is that the Xiaomi 15S Pro supports 4K night view videos across the entire focal length range.

Using Self-developed Chips in Tablets, Launching the First Self-developed 4G Smartwatch Chip T1, and Overcoming Numerous Difficulties in Baseband R&D

In addition to the Xiaomi 15S Pro mobile phone this time, XRing O1 is also used in the Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra tablet. This is the first time Xiaomi has used a self-developed chip in a tablet.

The O1 in the tablet is basically the same as that in the mobile phone. The highest main frequency of the super-large core is 3.7GHz, which is 0.2GHz lower than 3.9GHz of the mobile phone.

Compared with the Xiaomi Pad 6 Max 14-inch version equipped with the Snapdragon 8+ chip, the Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra equipped with O1 has increased the cold start speed of applications by 61%, the image loading speed of applications by 80%, and the smoothness of multi-tasking by 49%.

In addition to O1 in mobile phones and tablets, Lei Jun also brought another big move of self-developed chips this time, XRing T1. This is Xiaomi’s first self-developed 4G smartwatch chip, which is used in the Xiaomi Watch S4 eSIM version released today.

One of its most prominent features is that it integrates Xiaomi’s self-developed 4G baseband chip, which is also an important breakthrough for Xiaomi in the field of baseband chip technology. The R&D of baseband chips is extremely difficult. This time, Xiaomi has achieved independent design and R&D of the entire cellular communication link, including the baseband + radio frequency. XRing T1 supports 4G eSIM independent communication.

Lei Jun mentioned at the press conference that baseband R&D is an “inconceivably vast project”. The R&D team has more than 600 people, and more than 60% of the R&D personnel have more than 10 years of senior experience. At the same time, baseband R&D requires complex laboratory verification, and more than 7,000 test cases are needed to fully cover the 4G-LTE protocols at all levels.

At the same time, baseband R&D also requires a large amount of adaptation to the existing network. The whole process lasted 15 months, covered more than 100 cities, and the cumulative test mileage was 150,000 kilometers.

Lei Jun particularly mentioned that it is very difficult for the chip team to release two self-developed chips as planned and implement them in three products.

Conclusion: A Milestone in Xiaomi’s Chip-making, and the Coordination between Software and Hardware May Become a Key Advantage

The implementation of Xiaomi’s XRing O1 has become a milestone node on Xiaomi’s chip-making path, and it is also an answer sheet handed in by Xiaomi after 11 years of chip-making. At the same time, it has filled the gap of domestic flagship mobile phone chips with advanced process technology, which is of great significance to Xiaomi itself and the domestic technology industry.

At the same time, the implementation of Xiaomi’s self-developed chips in various devices will inevitably strengthen the coordination and connection at the bottom of Xiaomi’s ecological devices, and Xiaomi’s ability to coordinate software and hardware will be further enhanced.

Nowadays, with the rapid development of AI mobile phones and the deep integration of AI and mobile phones, higher requirements are put forward for the performance and energy efficiency ratio of chips. At the same time, to achieve a better user experience, it is necessary to achieve a deeper integration from the chip to the system, and the importance of self-developed chips is becoming more and more prominent.

Chips, OS, and AI are becoming the three major core technology arenas of top technology giants.

Please note that as of July 2024, there is no actual information indicating that Xiaomi has released the products and chips described in the above text. The above translation is based on the text you provided. If there are any inaccuracies, it is subject to the official information.