New tech promises to improve processor performance beyond stock benchmarks

Industry insider Ice Universe claims Oppo is working on a new form of “gaming technology” that will enable it to squeeze more performance out of existing chips. Named ‘Venom’ the methodology behind how this technology will work isn’t exactly clear but the purported performance gains sound very promising.

Venom allegedly has a likely chance of being present on the upcoming next iteration of OnePlus Ace, which is a pretty solid smartphone from 2022. How Venom works — as far as I can understand — is not really by making any changes to the hardware. Instead, it’ll most likely be software improvements that reportedly make processors more energy efficient.

Obviously, being more energy efficient means being able to run longer and at higher clock speeds without overheating as much. Though this is currently being marketed to the gaming community it does bring attention to the fact that we need to start thinking smarter to keep making better processors.

Recently it was announced that 1 nm chips were on their way to being a reality by 2030. This led to the question of whether we would see the last best smartphone within the decade. As manufacturers continue to cram more and more components into smaller spaces the laws of physics begin to take offense.

As was done around 2010 we will soon need to find novel ways of manufacturing processors so that we don’t hit a physical limit on how small chipsets can get. What Oppo is doing is a less complicated version of that — relying on software alone — but still showcases one of many ways to improve processor efficiency.

The industry is already seeing some trouble: Samsung Foundry closed a new plant recently and Huawei is desperate for TSMC engineers. It’s also a known fact that it is becoming increasingly expensive to manufacture better processors while retaining the same yield percentages.

How Venom will compare to similar products — like Red Magic’s gaming chips — remains to be seen. If nothing else, it might just be a better gaming mode for Oppo’s phones. But Ice Universe seems quite excited about the possibilities and I’ll keep my fingers optimistically crossed.