The Xiaomi 12S Ultra debuted at the beginning of the month, standing out especially for the performance of its camera, thanks to its huge 1″ 50 MP Sony IMX989 sensor and Leica’s contribution in terms of imaging. However, it seems that the cameras of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra are not even at their full potential. Now a teardown of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra has revealed the presence of Xiaomi’s Surge C2 imaging chip. However, for some reason the Surge C2 chip appears to be non-functional at the moment. According to the Ice Universe leaker, Xiaomi is working on the final debugging of the chip and will activate it in the Xiaomi 12S Ultra units in a future OTA. In recent years, imaging chips have become increasingly popular. OPPO, for example, debuted its MariSilicon imaging NPU with the OPPO Find X5 series earlier in the year. Although Qualcomm’s Spectra and Triple 18-bit ISPs in the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 already offer excellent performance, manufacturers seem to be leaning towards custom silicon.
