Move part of local firms' broader push to strengthen R&D in semiconductors

Oppo unveiled its second self-designed chip and its latest augmented reality glasses on Wednesday in its latest effort to beef up research and development prowess and accelerate its transformation from a smartphone vendor to a tech company amid intensified global competition.

The move is part of Chinese companies' broader push to strengthen R&D in semiconductors, as they attach more importance to innovation in crucial technologies and aim to have a greater say in industrial supply chains.

As Oppo's second custom-developed chip after the MariSilicon X dedicated imaging chip, the Mari-Silicon Y is not a successor, but rather a Bluetooth audio chip.

MariSilicon Y allows for a 50 percent increase in Bluetooth bandwidth compared with its top rivals, Oppo said.

Jiang Bo, senior director of chip products at Oppo, said as a flagship chip with advanced technologies, MariSilicon Y can help enhance "sound quality" and "intelligence" in user's audio experience.

At an event held on Wednesday, Oppo also unveiled its latest AR glasses. Weighing just 38 grams, the new gadget is able to make calls, conduct real-time translation, provide location-based navigation, convert voice into text for people with hearing impairments and more. The lenses also support vision correction, Oppo said.

Oppo is among the top 10 companies that filed the most virtual reality and AR patent applications globally in the past two years, data from Singapore-based R&D analytics provider PatSnap showed.

The results came after Oppo doubled down on resources dedicated to R&D. This year, it announced plans to recruit more than 2,000 R&D talent, on top of its more than 10,000 existing R&D staff.

Chen Mingyong, founder and CEO of Oppo, said the company aims to be a tech pioneer through long-term R&D input. "We have the ability to sharpen a sword in 10 years. We will ramp up the push to build our technical moat."

Oppo is one of a growing number of Chinese smartphone vendors that are stepping up a push to beef up semiconductor technologies. Chinese peer Vivo unveiled its self-designed V2 imaging chip in November, after it secured top position in the Chinese smartphone market in the third quarter of this year, despite the overall market decline.

Since 2021, Vivo has launched two self-developed chips, the V1 and V1+. The V2 adopts an AI image signal processor architecture, bringing about overall improvements in on-chip memory, AI computing and image processing units.

Huang Tao, vice-president of Vivo, said Vivo will step up efforts to enhance mobile imaging capabilities via in-house R&D as well as joint innovation, the company added.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, said Chinese companies increasingly value strong R&D input into crucial technologies such as chips, AR and VR.

Amid intensified competition, Oppo has also been working hard to grow its patent portfolios globally.

Last week, Oppo and Huawei Technologies Co announced they have inked a global patent cross-licensing agreement, which covers cellular standard essential patents, including 5G.

Feng Ying, chief intellectual property officer at Oppo, said the move demonstrates that the two companies recognize and greatly respect the value of each other's intellectual property. It is a win-win deal for both sides.

Last year, Oppo became the second most active Chinese patent applicant in Europe, according to the Munich-based European Patent Office. It was also one of several Chinese companies that made their way into the Top 50 in US patent rankings in 2021, data from US patent service provider IFI Claims showed.