Xiaomi to announce its "Pinecone" mobile chipset this month

Xiaomi’s chipset plan isn’t exactly a secret. According to Chinese semiconductor expert Laoyao, Pinecone Electronics is a joint venture set up by Xiaomi and chipset maker Leadcore back in November 2014, with Xiaomi owning 51 percent of the shares. In other words, this project has been under way for over two years. What this means is that rather than fully relying on the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek, Xiaomi can take advantage of Leadcore’s cellular radio technology for its own chipsets, thus keeping costs down in the long term.

Once Xiaomi gets comfortable with its chip production, it can potentially integrate more features into its future chipsets to stand out from the crowded mobile market — much like what Samsung, Apple and Huawei have been doing. That said, it’ll still be a while before we see how good Pinecone really is.