Social network may be joining the ranks of other tech giants seeking to reduce their dependence on chipmakers, Bloomberg reports.
Facebook is assembling a team to design its own semiconductors, joining other tech titans that have recently invested in building their own chips, according to job listings and sources who spoke with Bloomberg.
One job posting on Facebook’s corporate website highlighted by the news agency is for a manager to create an « end-to-end SoC/ASIC, firmware and driver development organization, » suggesting the initiative is still in the early stages.
It wasn’t immediately clear what specific application Facebook might have in mind for the chip; Facebook declined to comment.
By developing its own chip, the Menlo Park, California-based company would join other tech giants hoping to reduce their dependence on chipmakers such as Intel and Qualcomm.
Apple, for example, builds its own chips, which makes it better able to control the features it releases, as well as its timeline for introducing new devices. Apple now makes its own application processors that act as the brains of its mobile devices, a Bluetooth chip to quickly link its AirPods to its iPhones, and security chips that protect personal data and biometrics from hacking attempts.
Google developed chips in-house to process AI apps, boasting that they are 15 to 30 times faster than today’s conventional CPUs and GPUs. Unlike Apple, Google’s chips aren’t in your devices, but they are hard at work in Google’s data centers, delivering search results, identifying your friends in your photos, translating text, drafting Gmail message replies and screening out email spam.
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