As of right now, Google customizes its own Tensor line of chipsets for the Pixel family of devices quite a bit. But at their core, most of the designs are still based on Samsung Exynos. These chips are also made by Samsung foundries for Google. Industry sources say that Google is working to change this set-up so that it can have more power over the designs of its custom chips.
We already know that the Tensor G3 is made by Samsung and a group of other companies. It will be inside the Pixel 8 phones. Most likely, it’s already too late to change anything about that. It seems that Google did have plans to make the Tensor G4 chips for the Pixel 10 family with a design made entirely by Google. Allegedly, these plans have also fallen through, and the G4 custom chip design, called “Redondo,” might not happen at all because it’s hard for Google’s American and Indian teams to work together, and there are a lot of people coming and going from the company.
This means that Google is probably going to keep using Samsung for the Tensor G4 family and the Pixel 10 family as well. Sources say, though, that a Tensor G5 chipset with the code name “Laguna” could be the first that Google makes all by itself. It might come out in 2025, and if rumors are true, Google might look to TSMC to make the “Laguna” chip on a 3nm process, if the stories are true.
At the moment, all of this is just a guess. Even so, designing chips totally in-house could give Google a lot of new options for making hardware to speed up its many advanced smartphone features and help it come up with even more new ideas.
