Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold surfaces at FCC — and FCC documents suggest a surprise inside

Google’s next foldable phone just passed through the FCC, and buried on page 30 of the regulatory filing is a clue that could upend years of chip design strategy at the company.

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold, expected to launch later this year, showed up in U.S. Federal Communications Commission filings this week. Most of the document is standard SAR testing — measuring the radio frequency energy a phone emits when held against the body or head. Boring but necessary stuff. But on page 30, the word “MediaTek” appears in the wireless hardware section.

That’s significant because every Tensor chip Google has shipped so far — from the original Tensor in the Pixel 6 to the current Tensor G5 — uses a Samsung Exynos modem. Google designs the Tensor silicon architecture itself, but it licenses key components from other companies. The GPU usually comes from ARM Mali or Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR. The modem has always been Samsung’s.

If that’s changing, it’s a meaningful shift.

Rumors have been circulating since last year that Google would swap Samsung’s Exynos modem for MediaTek’s M90 baseband in the Tensor G6, the chip expected to power the Pixel 11 family. The purported benefit: lower power consumption. Samsung’s Exynos modems have been a consistent source of battery drain in Pixel phones, and switching to MediaTek — which has invested heavily in 5G modem efficiency — would address one of the longest-running complaints about Google’s in-house chips.

The FCC filing doesn’t confirm the switch outright. Samsung wouldn’t label an Exynos modem with MediaTek’s name. The appearance of “MediaTek” in the certification documents for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold makes the rumor substantially harder to dismiss.

Still, FCC documents aren’t formal product announcements. Component listings in SAR test reports can include alternative configurations, reference designs, or testing equipment alongside the actual production hardware. Google could still ship the Pixel 11 Pro Fold with a Samsung modem and the MediaTek reference could be a testing artifact.

But the filing aligns with what multiple supply chain sources have been saying for months. Google’s Pixel 11 family is expected to debut with the Tensor G6 chip in 2027, alongside the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. If the MediaTek modem switch is real, it would mean Google has finally found a way to cut one of its last remaining ties to Samsung’s semiconductor division — and that the Tensor chip is becoming more independent with every generation.