Google has made a big move towards developing its own system-on-a-chip (SoC) for its own Pixel devices with the hiring of Manu Gulati, who has been helping develop chips for Apple since 2009. As first reported by Variety, Gulati has just recently updated his LinkedIn page with his new title — Lead SoC Architect at Google.
Google has reportedly been interested in developing its own chips for Android devices for some years now, likely seeking the same success that Apple has found since it started designing its own chips for iPhones and iPads. Poaching Gulati to lead their team is a big move — a quick search of patents linked to Gulati shows 15 patents assigned to Apple related to SoCs with Gulati listed as an inventor. On top of his work at Apple, Gulati has 27 years of experience in the chip design industry having previously working for AMD and Broadcom as well.
The Pixel and Pixel XL represented Google's attempt to design an Android phone that combined hardware with optimized software. Adding the ability to custom design the SoC as well onto future Pixel devices will allow Google to better integrate and leverage all the powerful machine learning capabilities highlighted at last month's Google I/O conference.
