Xiaomi’s 3nm Chipset Launch Faces Challenges, Including 5G Modem Supply

Xiaomi is gearing up to introduce its custom 3nm chipset for smartphones and tablets in 2025, marking a major milestone for the company. It will be the first time that a Chinese brand has launched its in-house solution based on state-of-the-art 3nm silicon technology. This prospect is an important step in the right direction for Xiaomi, but with the U.S. government raining down increasing restrictions on China’s tech sector — it’s possible such measures will now put the brakes on Xiaomi’s progress.

Xiaomi’s 3nm Chipset Launch in 2025 Faces Challenges, Including 5G Modem Supply Issues Amid U.S. Sanctions

A key obstacle to Xiaomi’s ambitions is obtaining 5G modems from foreign suppliers. With the development of its custom 3nm SOC, Xiaomi finds itself battling two fronts: International resistance, especially from the US long before the conflicting geopolitical dynamics of today; and functional competition from US manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the sight of a Chinese firm making its 3nm entry and seeking to cooperate with foreign vendors for 5G modem orders may trigger some slight geopolitical tensions, while making Xiaomi’s job of competing with existing heavyweights such as Qualcomm and MediaTek harder in the chipset race.

Although the post doesn’t single out any partners it mentions how much Xiaomi depends on overseas manufacturers for 5G modems, per TrendForce, and a few industry trends leave room for speculation of Xiaomi working with a number of firms, including Samsung, which recently provided Google with their Exynos 5400 5G modems for the Pixel 9 series.

While Qualcomm is a leader in the 5G modem market, it may be reluctant to work with Xiaomi since the company’s 3nm chipset could eat into Qualcomm’s market share.

It would mean higher costs in purchasing Qualcomm’s modems for Xiaomi. The second possible partner of Xiaomi is Huawei. There indeed is a cross-licensing agreement between the companies to use 5G technology. Unfortunately, Huawei’s baseband SoCs made with SMIC’s 7nm lithographic tech are not as power-efficient as Qualcomm’s and Samsung’s products. The pairing of these less-than-efficient chips with Xiaomi’s state-of-the-art 3 nm chipset could lead to delays. But if U.S. sanctions complicate Xiaomi’s access to 5G modems supplied by others, the Huawei 5G solution could eventually become an acceptable option for Xiaomi — with the caveat that it would be far from ideal, of course.

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