A little while back, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) subsidiary Google announced its new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones, which target the premium portion of the smartphone market.

One particular feature that has received a lot of attention is the chip inside of these phones called the Pixel Visual Core. The chip, Google says, is a "Google-designed Image Processing Unit (IPU)" that helps enhance the camera capabilities of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 smartphones.

Although Google says it's a Google-designed chip, it recently came to light that Google worked with chip-maker Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) to build the chip. The exact nature of the collaboration between Google and Intel isn't made clear in Google's public statements, but independent analyst Daniel Matte predicted back in August that the chip is a custom-designed part that incorporates technology from an Intel subsidiary called Movidius.

Intel bought Movidius, a small chip start-up focused on computer vision technology, in late 2016 in a bid to broaden its technology portfolio as the chip giant aims to expand its reach beyond its core personal computer and data center markets.

I think the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Matte's claim.

Now, there has been some speculation that Intel is also manufacturing the chip in its factories as well. However, I think this is highly unlikely. Here's why.

Image source: Intel.

It takes time to migrate to new manufacturing tech

Intel announced its latest Movidius part, known as the Movidius Myriad X, back in August. This part is built using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's 16-nanometer FFC manufacturing technology.

The reason that this part is built using TSMC's technology instead of Intel's is simple: Intel announced its plan to acquire Movidius in September 2016. Chip development cycles, even for something that's relatively simple like the Movidius VPU, are quite long -- we're talking on the order of years. Intel simply wouldn't have had the time to migrate Movidius' technology to its own chip manufacturing technology in time for the Google Pixel 2 product launch.

Furthermore, given that these product development cycles are long, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the next generation or two of Movidius technology will be manufactured on TSMC technology, either.

For some perspective: Intel completed the acquisition of the cellular modem division of Infineon all the way back in January 2011, but the company won't release its first in-house manufactured cellular modem until next year.