China’s Oppo Touts Smartphone Photo Breakthrough With New Chip

Oppo joins a growing number of Chinese companies exploring advances in semiconductors at a time when Beijing is encouraging the growth of a domestic chip industry

(Bloomberg) — Oppo, one of three leading Chinese smartphone brands filling the void left by Huawei’s retreat, claimed a smartphone mobile photography first with a self-designed chip that delivers sharper and more faithful images.

Oppo unveiled the MariSilicon X Tuesday, which it says can process real-time RAW images — the raw storage format that contains the most information but also requires more computing power. That’s a break from other smartphones that first compress the image captured before applying artificial intelligence to filter and improve picture quality, which saves time but may sacrifice fidelity.