Patents are the key.
The key to independent research and development of chips is communication baseband, which has to be said to be a communication patent. Patent barriers may be the biggest difficulty for Xiaomi to independently develop chips. For example, both Huawei and Apple need to pay huge patent fees to Qualcomm. Moreover, Huawei has accumulated communication patents for many years. Apple owns Intel's communication patent. In the case of patent cross-licensing, the patent fee of the chip independently developed by Xiaomi will not be low. Patent authorization is money, so the funding problem is another difficulty for Xiaomi to independently develop chips.
Money is the key.
Chip development needs money and time, so there will be time to be Xiaomi's best friend. Maybe you think Xiaomi is rich, with a cash reserve of more than 60 billion, but Xiaomi, who is doing chip research and development, is not necessarily so rich. Xiaomi originally took the cost-effective route, but also promised that the comprehensive profit rate of hardware would not exceed 5, and there was not enough profit to invest in research and development.
Why can Huawei succeed? Huawei's mobile phone business is only one of Huawei's main businesses, and Huawei is also the world's leading provider of communication equipment; And is the premium of Huawei's mobile phone comparable to that of Xiaomi? As far as mobile phones are concerned, the gap between Xiaomi's shipments and Huawei's is still relatively large.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Xiaomi needs a higher brand premium to get more R&D funds. In fact, if a brand wants to last for a long time, high-end brands are the only way out.
Xiaomi may not involve high-end chips.
Why doesn't Xiaomi involve high-end chips for the time being? The simplest reason is that it is not worth it. The more chips are shipped, the lower the average cost per chip. What's the current shipment of Xiaomi's mobile phones using Qualcomm 8 Series flagship chips? It may be less than one-tenth of Huawei's flagship shipments.
Xiaomi is the fourth largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, but the best seller is the low-end mobile phone. If Xiaomi is really the flagship chip independently developed, its shipment may be lower than that of Kirin 9 series chips (110), so Xiaomi can't afford it. But some people say they want to sell, just like Huawei Kirin chips don't sell. The chips independently developed by Xiaomi are unlikely to be sold. If you dare to sell it, others may not use it.
Xiaomi can actually consider smart speaker chips, TV chips, routers and other places with low thresholds. Mobile phone chips have a certain scale and profit to consider. The domestic shipment of Xiaomi TV is the first, and the shipment of Xiaomi smart speakers in 20 19 is also 10 million. If half of these millet products can use the chips independently developed by Xiaomi, the profits will be considerable (of course, Xiaomi may already be making mass-produced products).
Finally, I wrote: The chip independently developed by Xiaomi is not small, and it should only involve low-end chips. If Xiaomi's flagship shipment does not have a certain scale, the flagship chip independently developed by Xiaomi is of little significance. The above is only a rational analysis, and I still hope that the chip independently developed by Xiaomi will succeed. Come on, Xiaomi!