UNISOC
More info
- Founded
- 2001 (as Spreadtrum)
- Type
- Fabless semiconductor company
- Owner
- Tsinghua Unigroup
- Website
- unisoc.com
A budget-segment Chinese chip designer that sits inside most of the world's cheapest smartphones without anyone knowing the name.
The lineage runs back to Spreadtrum, founded in 2001 in Shanghai, which merged with RDA Microelectronics in 2014 under the state-linked Tsinghua Unigroup and was renamed UNISOC in 2018. The company designs SoCs but owns no factories — its designs are built by contract manufacturers, the same way MediaTek operates.
The Tiger line powers entry-level smartphones and feature phones across Asia, Africa and Latin America, making the company one of the largest suppliers of ARM-based mobile chips by volume. US export restrictions aimed at China's semiconductor industry have turned UNISOC into a strategic pawn far above its modest margins.