Google Reportedly Building Fully Custom Camera ISP For Tensor G5 In Pixel 10

Google is switching its Tensor production to TSMC for this upcoming generation and, to make that happen, Tensor G5 will reportedly incorporate a selection of off-the-shelf components to replace Samsung-made portions of prior chips, including the use of a fully custom ISP.

Tensor chips have, since day one, largely consisted of a mix of Google-made/designed components and Samsung components, as Google has leverage Samsung’s foundry alongside the company’s Exynos chips to help bring Tensor to life. But, as has been reported for quite some time now, Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10 will be ditching Samsung for TSMC, leaving some gaps in how Google will make its chips.

According to a new report from Android Authority, there are a handful of off-the-shelf components that Google will be switching to.

Tensor G5 will reportedly continue to use several of Google’s existing designs (with upgrades) that were present in Tensor G4 and other prior Samsung-made chips, such as the TPU, DSP, Memory compressor, and Audio processor, but it will be making several components swaps to accommodate for the switch to TSMC, including:

GPU: Arm Mali > Imagination Technologies DXT
Video codec: Google “BigWave” & Samsung MFC > Chips&Media WAVE677DV
Display controller/2D GPU: Samsung DPU > VeriSilicon DC9000
Image Signal Processor: Google-customized Samsung ISP > Fully custom Google ISP
Physical layer controllers: Samsung > Synopsys DesignWare IP cores
SPMI controller: Samsung > SmartDV SPMI
PWM controller: Samsung > Faraday Technologies FTPWMTMR010
UFS controller: Samsung > Unknown third-party

The most notable swap here is the ISP, as Google is apparently creating a fully custom solution. Google previously used its own ISP in some Snapdragon-powered Pixel phones, starting with 2017’s “Pixel Visual Core” in the Pixel 2 series. That evolved into the “Pixel Neural Core” with Pixel 4 before Google dropped the custom chip ahead of Tensor’s debut in 2021.

In many ways, the component changes Google is making likely won’t be felt by the end user, but it’ll be interesting to see if there are any improvements – or downsides – to the various swaps. Another notable swap that was previously reported is the use of a MediaTek modem in place of the current Samsung options.