The wafer foundry business behind Google's self-developed mobile phone chips is getting bigger and bigger

Recently, Google announced that its latest flagship phones, Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, will no longer use Qualcomm processors, but will instead use its own Tensor system-on-chip. Some commentators believe that as Google joins the trend of developing its own chips, the "pie" of wafer foundry will become larger and larger, and TSMC, Samsung and even Intel will become more and more dependent.

Taiwan’s Economic Daily pointed out that Google’s latest developments highlight the trend of mobile phone manufacturers and technology giants moving towards developing their own chips.

Last year, Apple announced that it would replace the Intel chips currently used in Mac computers with its self-developed M1 chip. Google had previously partnered with Broadcom to develop the Tensor Processing Unit for its own large data center servers to accelerate the calculation of customized AI algorithms to assist in the recognition and analysis of images, language, text clips and audio and video in the cloud.

In addition, even e-commerce giant Amazon and software giant Microsoft have entered the field of self-developed chips. Amazon made early preparations in 2015, acquiring Israeli chip manufacturer Annapurna Labs for US$350 million, and announced last year that some operations of the Alexa voice assistant will be replaced by self-developed chips, reflecting the need to reduce dependence on Nvidia chips. Also at the end of last year, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft is designing its own processor chips based on the Arm architecture for its servers and future Surface laptops.

This trend of independent chip research and development also indicates that the wafer foundry pie will become larger and larger. Although Google has not announced which wafer foundry will produce the in-house processors used in Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, Jon Prosser, a well-known foreign whistleblower, broke the news in July that the processor used in this new phone will be built using Samsung's 5nm process. In addition, Intel also announced in July that the first batch of wafer foundry customers include Qualcomm and Amazon. This also shows that as major technology companies move towards self-developed chip design, TSMC, Samsung, and even Intel, which has just entered the field of professional wafer foundry, will become more and more dependent.