Xiaomi today at MWC 2017 launched its new processor and named it Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC that is developed together by Xiaomi and Pinecone. The Surge S1 is an octa-core processor with four ARM Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.2GHz and the other four power-efficient ARM Cortex A53 cores are clocked at 1.4GHz. This processor comes with a big.LITTLE structure to effectively use its four cores.

“We first heard the news of Xiaomi developing its chips in mid-2015 when the vice president of the processor manufacturer Leadcore announced a partnership with Xiaomi to help it design them. Today we are excited and proud to announce that Xiaomi is going to lift the lid on the details about its own “Pinecone” SoC on 28th February! This would make Xiaomi the second Chinese smartphone manufacturer only after Huawei to produce its processing units. ” said Xiaomi in an official post.

Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC
Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC

Xiaomi Surge S1 Specifications

The Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC comes with an octa-core structure with quad 2.2GHz A53 + quad 1.4GHz A53 CPUs and a 28 nm HPc process. It comes with a quad-core Mali-T860 GPU along with a 32-bit high-performance DSP for voice processing and a 14-bit dual ISP with up to 36-megapixel camera support, light sensitivity enhancement / dual noise reduction algorithm / multi-shot optimization. This SOC will support dual-channel LPDDR3 933MHz RAM and eMMC 5.0 internal storage. It will have support for display up to 2560×1600 resolution and will support 9V2A fast charging for the upcoming Xiaomi devices.

It will support LTE Cat.4 network with 5 modes 23 bands, VoLTE high-definition voice support and video calls. Audio formats it will support include PCM, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, MP3, AMR – NB and WB, FLAC, APE, DSD, WAV SNR: 119dB / Total Harmonic Distortion: -90dB Supports SmartPA / Dirac and it will support video recording 4K @ 30fps,1080p@120fps,720p@240/fps. It will support H.265 /HEVC(Main profile), H.264 (Baseline/Main/High profile), MPEG4 (Simple profile/ASP), VC-1(Simple/Main/Advanced profile) and more codecs.

Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC AnTuTu benchmark
Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC AnTuTu benchmark

The company also launched Xiaomi Mi 5C smartphone at MWC 2017 which comes powered by the Xiaomi Surge S1 SoC. Xiaomi is the 4th player globally which has its own SoC now after Samsung which has launched “Exynos” processors, Apple has launched “A” series processors and Huawei launched its “Kirin” series processors. Here are the highlights of the Surge S1 processor:

– Octa-core 64-bit chipset (4xA53 cores 2.2GHz + 4xA53 cores 1.4GHz)
– 28nm High-Performance Computing (HPC) process
– Mali-T860 quad-core GPU
– AFBC + ASTC image compression technology
– 32-bit high-performance DSP for voice processing
– 14-bit dual ISP; enhanced image processing capabilities
– Surge ISP algorithm improves camera light sensitivity by 150%
– Dual noise reduction algorithm reduces noise and preserves image detail in low light
– Upgradable baseband; programmable modem, OTA upgradable
– VoLTE high-quality call and video support
– Chip-level security; TEE architecture, strict compliance with safety regulations
– Antutu score 64,817