Samsung’s Mobile Experience (MX) business has purportedly established an in-house team dedicated to developing application processors (AP). According to recent reports, this AP development team may be led by Choi Won-joon, an Executive Vice President widely recognized for his expertise in wireless technology. Choi had previously worked at Qualcomm until 2016 before joining Samsung, and he was recently appointed as the head of Samsung’s MX Development business during the company’s annual reorganization.
The Application Processor, or AP, serves as the central component or “heart” of a smartphone’s functionality. The move to create an AP solution development team within Samsung’s MX Business suggests a strategic initiative to enhance the performance of existing Exynos chips. These chips, currently used in Galaxy smartphones, are produced by a dedicated AP team within Samsung System LSI.
The report by TheElec speculates that the goal of the MX business might extend beyond optimizing existing Exynos chips. There is a possibility that the MX business is considering the development of an entirely new processor.
Presently, Samsung’s MX business relies on suppliers such as Qualcomm, Mediatek, and Samsung System LSI. However, recent criticisms of performance issues in the Galaxy S22, attributed to the Exynos SoC, have prompted Samsung to opt for Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC in its upcoming flagship Galaxy S23 series.
Samsung and Qualcomm’s collaboration has expanded with a multi-year agreement allowing future premium Samsung Galaxy products to feature Snapdragon chipsets. This collaboration encompasses a wide range of devices, including PCs, tablets, and extended reality, across 3G, 4G, and 5G technologies, with provisions for future 6G technologies.
Rumors are circulating that Samsung may introduce its first exclusive custom chipset for a forthcoming Galaxy S series by 2025, marking a potential evolution in the company’s chipset strategy.