Samsung is reportedly developing its own custom CPU core in an effort to better compete in the mobile space.
Samsung is one of the world’s leading chipmakers, but its own Exynos chips have lagged far behind Apple’s offerings. According to a report in South Korea’s Pulse News, the company is stepping up its efforts to develop its own CPU core, the central component of the application processor (AP) that powers a mobile device. Samsung even recruited a senior CPU developer from AMD to further its goals.
Samsung’s current Exynos AP has an Arm CPU core, but the company wants to reduce its reliance on the British chip designer. Using its own CPU core will also give it more opportunity to customize and optimize performance, much as Apple has done with its chips.
Pulse News believes the first of these new chips, dubbed the ‘Galaxy Chip,’ could be available as early as 2025. Because Samsung’s CPU core development has just started, the first generation of the Galaxy Chip would likely still have an Arm CPU core. This would be replaced in later generations by Samsung’s own core.
“Samsung Electronics will be able to boost completion level of its Galaxy Chip if it successfully develops a CPU core,” an unnamed industry official told the outlet. “It will be able to load its own CPU in 2027 if development is carried out as planned.”
Interestingly, the 2025 release data coincides with earlier reports that Samsung was assembling a semiconductor design ‘dream team’ to tackle Apple’s dominance. Dubbed “Dream Platform One,” the team’s goal was to surpass Apple’s M1 by 2025.
While Pulse News doesn’t specifically mention Dream Platform One, it’s a safe bet the team is responsible for the upcoming Galaxy Chip.