Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Samsung has reportedly formed a chipset development team within its smartphone business.
- It’s believed that this team would create Galaxy-exclusive processors.
- Samsung traditionally relies on its sister company for custom processors.
Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series is expected to arrive with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor globally. However, it looks like the company is doubling down on in-house smartphone silicon thanks to a new development.
The Elec reports that Samsung has formed a chipset or application processor (AP) development team within the company’s mobile experience (MX) business. This division is responsible for running the company’s smartphone operations.
The chipset development team will purportedly be led by executive vice-president Choi Won-joon. Choi joined Samsung from chipmaker Qualcomm in 2016.
A major change for Samsung
Samsung’s smartphone unit has long relied on the Samsung System LSI division to develop in-house Exynos processors. In saying so, the LSI unit has also designed and produced Exynos chips for other clients over the years, such as Meizu and Vivo.
The Elec‘s sources suggest that the most likely reason for a chipset development team to be formed within the mobile division itself would be so it can develop its own smartphone processors for Galaxy handsets. The sources also entertained the less likely possibility of the team being created to further optimize Exynos processors for Galaxy phones.
“There seems to be no reason to create an ‘AP Solution Development Team’ within the MX division simply for AP optimization,” one of the sources said. “The MX division is a newly established organization to create the APs they need on their own.”
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This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard about Samsung having ambitious plans for its in-house chipsets. Reports emerged back in May that Samsung was working on an ambitious “Galaxy-exclusive” chipset for 2025 and that it would skip Exynos processors for 2023 and 2024. Of course, Samsung has since signed a deal with Qualcomm to use Snapdragon processors “globally” in Galaxy flagship phones, starting with next year’s Galaxy S23.
A proper in-house chipset development team raises plenty of questions. Would these chipsets still be produced by Samsung Semiconductor or could it be produced by TSMC? Will the new processors still offer AMD graphics? What does this mean for Samsung LSI’s Exynos processors? We’ll just have to wait and see, as Samsung declined to comment on the matter when asked by the outlet.
