What’s happened? As reported by Chosun Media, Samsung has officially reorganized part of its semiconductor arm and formed a dedicated Custom SoC Development Team. This marks a shift away from simply licensing standard ARM CPU cores. Instead, Samsung is now investing in building its own chip architecture, covering CPU cores, AI/Neural units, and system-on-chip (SoC) design. This move is meant to bring Samsung on par with companies like Apple and Qualcomm, which have long pushed custom-silicon strategies.
- The new team sits under Samsung’s System LSI division, with SoC veteran Park Bong‑il tapped to lead the effort.
- Until now, Samsung has used standard ARM CPU cores for its Exynos chips. This custom-SoC initiative could change that, letting Samsung design CPU, GPU, NPU, and other blocks in-house.
- The plan isn’t just for internal devices, as Samsung could offer custom chips to external customers too, turning itself into a full-chip design agency.
- Samsung already has foundry capability, including advanced fabrication processes, giving it a shot at competing with the biggest chip makers.
Samsung
Why this is important: If this works out, Samsung’s next phones might feel more refined, efficient, and uniquely optimized than anything it’s done before. Custom chips mean Samsung can tune performance, heat, battery, camera, AI, and just about everything for its own hardware and software instead of playing catch-up. It could also shake up the mobile-chip landscape.
Additionally, with Samsung playing chip-maker and foundry, the dominance of just a few chip suppliers could loosen up. That could lead to more innovation, better optimization, and maybe even more price competition. For users, this might finally close the gap between Android devices and those “silicon-designed” phones that deliver smooth performance, longer battery life, and tighter integration.
Samsung
Why should I care? This could finally mean buying a Samsung phone that feels truly “made by Samsung” from the inside out. Custom chips let Samsung fine-tune its own devices in specific ways, which could translate to smoother performance, better efficiency, and fewer compromises between regions where Snapdragon and Exynos used to feel uneven. In simple terms, future Samsung phones may stop feeling like tuned Android devices and start feeling like tightly integrated machines built around their own silicon. Much like what Apple users already enjoy.
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
Okay, so what’s next? For now, this is a behind-the-scenes move, not something you’ll see on store shelves tomorrow. The real clues will show up in leaks, benchmarks, and launch events over the next one to two years. If you’re planning an upgrade soon, you probably won’t feel the impact yet, but if you’re the kind who upgrades every couple of years, this is absolutely worth tracking.
