Whitechapel: Google's custom 5 nm Exynos SoC may be coming to Pixels and Chromebooks, but not the Pixel 5
Brought to our attention by a post on Clien.net last week via SamMobile, Axios has expanded upon claims that Samsung has designed a custom Exynos chipset for Google. Citing a "source familiar with Google's effort", Axios claims that Google has already received working versions of the chipset. Presumably engineering samples, Axios states that Google and Samsung have codenamed the chipset Whitechapel.
Based on the latter's 5 nm process, Whitechapel is apparently based on two ARM Cortex-A78 cores, which are complemented by two A76 cores and four A55 cores. A GPU with twenty processing units is onboard too. Axios reports that Whitechapel will include hardware optimised for Google's machine learning and "always-on" capabilities of its digital assistant, which ties in with previous rumours of Google including its visual core and NPU instead of Samsung's ISP and NPU.
Axios opines that Google may be moving away from Qualcomm to save costs and for greater control of its business. This may extend beyond Pixel smartphones too, as Axios speculates that subsequent versions of Google's in-house chip could make their way into Chromebooks. However, this will apparently not happen before late 2021 at the earliest.
Whitechapel will not be powering the Pixel 5 series, either. Citing the same source, Axios states that in-house chips will not be ready until 2021. Hence, keep an eye out for what SoC Google chooses for the Pixel 5a. Speculatively, Google may debut Whitechapel on flagship smartphones, making the Pixel 6 series likely candidates.
