Google recently talked with some microchip makers about developing chips based on Google's own preferred designs, part of a push by the company to bring more uniformity to the fragmented universe of Android phones. That, Google hopes, would make its Android mobile operating system more competitive with Apple’s phones at the high end of the market and solve other major problems.

In the discussions, which occurred this fall, Google representatives put forward designs of chips it was interested in co-developing, including a phone’s main processor. The designs enable new features Google hopes to implement within Android software in the next few years, according to people briefed on the discussions.