Oppo has announced the closure of Zeku, its Shanghai-based chip business, citing concerns about the global economy and the smartphone sector.
Zeku was instrumental in the development of the MariSilicon line of chips, which included the MariSilicon X ISP and MariSilicon Y audio processor. These two were mostly used in high-end Oppo phones such as the Find X series, Reno phones, the Find N2 Flip, and others.
Oppo entered the chip-making business in 2019, successfully developing a variety of in-house co-processors, ISPs, modems, power management chips, and audio chips. According to speculation, Oppo invested more than $1.4 billion in its chipset development endeavour.
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There were also rumours that Oppo was developing its own SoCs, comparable to those used by Samsung, Google, and Apple, and that they would be ready in a few years, but it now appears that those will never see the light of day.
Recent Find X phones have stopped using Oppo’s proprietary processors, indicating that the business had this planned for some time and saw it coming.
In the future, we may anticipate Oppo phones to rely on Qualcomm’s standard processors, such as the ISP, NPU, and other hardware found in Snapdragon SoCs.
