Chinese phone manufacturer Oppo is shuttering its Zeku chip development division and letting go of its internal System-on-Chip (SoC) design aspirations, according to the South China Morning Post. The news comes as worldwide smartphone sales continue to decline and the US carries on with chip export restrictions.
Bloomberg reports Oppo’s Zeku division was set up in 2019 and carried about 200 patents in its Shanghai division. Like Apple, Oppo started making its own co-processors for imaging and other smartphone components but had not successfully launched its own SoC to get away from relying on other companies for the most significant chip in the device.
Oppo’s most recent releases include the Oppo Find N2 Flip, which is powered by a…