The startling rumor of the Pixel 6 lists Google’s SoC with two ARM X1 CPU cores

What’s going on in the world?

Google is building the Pixel 6 and with it, the company dumps Qualcomm and introduces its first main internal SoC (with the help of Samsung): the “Google Tensor SoC”, also known as “Whitechapel”. Aside from some talking about Google’s special AI sauce, there hasn’t been much information about the basic parts of Tensor like, for example, the CPU. A reasonable expectation for a company building its first SoC is that it will not be too ambitious; we would expect Google to play within the railings set by ARM and, after sending a modest SoC cookie cutter, the company would learn from its first design and iteration. But a new report by Mishaal Rahman of XDA Developers states that even with its first design, Google isn’t afraid to leave its own mark on SoC design.

Remember how ARM SoCs typically include three levels of CPU cores: a large CPU for fast processing tasks such as launching applications, medium cores for sustained performance, and small cores for background and low-power processes . Rahman says it has a source with a real-life Pixel 6 Pro and offers the following CPU specifications: two 2.8 GHz Cortex-X1 cores, two 2.25 GHz Cortex-A76 cores and four 1.8 GHz Cortex-A55 cores.

If this information is true, Google’s range of CPU cores will be different from anything else on the market. Both have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 and Samsung’s Exynos 2200 a Cortex X1, three Cortex A78 and four Cortex A55. You are not supposed to have two X1 cores. These are the big cores that can do some serious processing and hide two on a smartphone I could lead to incredible performance. Or it can cause extreme overheating. You are also not supposed to use A76 cores, which are from last year. The “middle” cores of any other company are the newer, faster A78 cores.

Compared to the typical design, Google changed one of the mid-cores to a second large X1 core and then discarded the remaining mid-cores by switching to last year’s cores. Perhaps the degradation of the rest of the middle nuclei is an attempt to balance heat production? At launch, ARM said a 5 nm Cortex A78 had a 20% improved performance in the same thermal envelope as a 7 nm Cortex A76. But because Google uses the 5 nm A76, the A76 cores should save less heat than the A78.

Frankenchip

What is the goal here? Is Google trying to seize the Android reference crown with this double Frankenchip X1? It would be a shame to spend all of these engineering resources on a custom solution and turn them into an average performance benchmark when chips with readily available middle performance parameters from multiple vendors are available. Here a lot of effort is invested that we hope will somehow bear fruit.

The Android community’s Tensor collective journey began with this surprise entry into the Geekbench 5 database, which features a “Google Pixel 6 Pro” with this unprecedented basic 2 x 2 x 4 design. The Geekbench information is read from an easy-to-fake file, but this entry didn’t look fake, as it was already completely amazing. Rahman says, “The build fingerprint, kernel version string, CPU frequencies, CPU clusters, GPU information and more match the values ​​of the Pixel 6 Pro from our source “. Therefore, it is very likely that this entry will show a legitimate Geekbench execution.

And for a flagship smartphone, this Geekbench 5 score is terrible. A Snapdragon 888 scores at some point in the range of 3300-3500, while Google’s Pixel 6 gets a lower score than a Pixel 4. We would assume that this is due to a lot of optimization and configuration work that has yet to be done. and that it would be wrong to draw conclusions from the score.

We’re starting to get a clearer picture of what’s in the Google Tensor SoC, even though real-world performance is still a wildcard. The Samsung Exynos unit helps to design the chip and the other basic components are very Samsung-y. According to reports, the GPU is the same as the Exynos Galaxy S21, an ARM Mali G78 available for sale. The modem is also from Samsung (an Exynos 5123), which will mark the first time in a while that an Exynos modem has reached the shores of the United States. Google is publishing the AI-focused parts of the chip design and promises that the chip will feed the voice transcripts on board.

Because it has access to someone with a Pixel 6 Pro, XDA was also able to corroborate many other specifications that have been floating around. The 50MP “GN1” image sensor manufactured by Samsung for the main camera represents the first update of the Pixel line image sensor in several years. This rectangular part of the camera is a 4x optical telephoto lens powered by a Sony 48 MP IMX586, while the wide-angle camera continues Google’s love story with Sony’s 2016 image sensors: it’s a 12 MP IMX386 .

Other reported specs promise computing power with a huge 5,000 mAh battery, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and Wi-Fi 6E. After taking a year off with the Pixel 5, Google looks set to return to the flagship race.

Google certainly advertises Google Tensor SoC in its advertising. In Japan (which seems to be Google’s new second favorite country), the company is celebrating its first internal SoC by selling “Original Google Chips” in the Google Store: they’re literally bags of edible chips, designed after each one. . Pixel 6 color. They all have a “Googley Tasty Flavor” and even have a large strip that matches the camera block. The video ad for the chips, in which a woman loads a bag of Pixel chips with a USB-C plug, is really a thing.

We still have no idea when this phone comes out. It is rumored that Android 12 will be released on October 4, so presumably there will be a release sometime later.

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