ARMs Race | Googler hints at Google Silicon chip GS101 for Pixel 6

Google looks to be ready to finally launch its Pixel 6 with its own in-house chip codenamed ‘Whitechapel.’ Last year in April we reported on Google’s development of 8-core SOC ‘Whitechapel’ with Samsung. We have also followed Samsung’s partnership with AMD on a mobile GPU inside the next flagship Exynos and how Google may reportedly power its Pixel Phones, laptops and 2in1’s with their new in-house chip.

A new code change submitted to AOSP (Android Open Source Project), a team of Google engineers are attempting to update the SELinux policy of the ‘OsloFeedback’ app. A Google engineer then responded to the feedback with a link that points to Google’s internal source code repo according to XDA–developers, “You don’t need coredomain to use binder use. This one lives fine on P21,” according to the Google Engineer. Presumably, P21 refers to Pixel 6, since other rumors point to Pixel 5a running on the Snapdragon 765 5G, which was the chip of choice for last year’s Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a.

Whitechapel GS101 details

The URL in question points to a file located in /android/device/google/gs101 sepolicy/whitechapel branch. As we mentioned above, “Whitechapel” is a new Google Silicon chip designed in partnership with Samsung, details below:

• The chip, code-named Whitechapel, was designed in cooperation with Samsung, who’s state-of-the-art 5-nanometer technology would be used to manufacture the chips, according to a source familiar with Google’s effort.
• In early 2020, Google received its first working versions of the chip. However, the Google-designed chips aren’t expected to be ready to power Pixel phones until 2021. Subsequent versions of Google’s chip could power Chromebooks.
• In addition to an 8-core ARM processor, Whitechapel will also include hardware optimized for Google’s machine-learning technology. A portion of its silicon will also be dedicated to improving the performance and “always-on” capabilities of Google Assistant.

The first to devices that will get GS101, while be codename “Raven” and “Oriole” which will likely be two size variations of Pixel 6. Just as with Apple and Microsoft, Google would have less reliance on Intel and Qualcomm with which it could further optimize its own devices for performance. Google already makes two of its own chips in pixel devices, one is the security chip called the Titan M and the other is a co-processor called the Pixel Neural Core. One thing is for sure, despite Google’s lagging sales of the devices, Pixels are not going anywhere.