Even then, custom Samsung CPUs should only be ready by 2027
The Samsung Galaxy S23 series has been highly successful due to its use of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which offers improved performance and efficiency compared to its predecessor. Samsung has fully embraced the chip, abandoning its own Exynos SoC. However, a recent report reveals that Samsung has restarted development on its own custom CPU cores after shutting down its CPU design division and switching to reference Arm CPU cores. It will likely take until 2027 for custom CPUs to debut.
According to a Business Korea report, Samsung’s Electronics division has created an internal team led by Rahul Tuli, a CPU development expert and former senior developer at AMD. The in-house developed CPU could debut in 2027 at the earliest. Meanwhile, Samsung is working on its next-generation SoCs optimized for Galaxy devices, tentatively named Galaxy chip. Rumors suggest the first Galaxy chip could be launched in 2025, but it will probably use Arm CPU cores.
Samsung previously used the Mongoose CPU cores in Exynos SoCs, but they were too power-hungry and inefficient compared to Qualcomm’s offerings. Consequently, Samsung killed its CPU design team, leading to the layoff of over 300 developers from its R&D facility in Austin, Texas. An in-house CPU design will better optimize SoCs for Samsung devices and result in superior performance and battery life, as exemplified by Apple’s A-series chips.
For the time being, Samsung will continue to use Snapdragon chips in its flagship devices thanks to its partnership with Qualcomm.
