Report: LG Nuclun 2 SoC heading to the V10's successor, not the G5

LG has reportedly begun work on its second in-house mobile application processor, which could reduce the company’s dependence on Qualcomm’s mobile chips and help set LG up as a rival to Samsung. However, the chip may not end up in LG’s main 2016 flagship.

The custom chip is expected to appear in commercial products next year and the latest sources state that the chip will be similarly as powerful as HUAWEI Silicon’s new Kirin 950 SoC. This suggests that the LG Nuclun 2 will be based on ARM Cortex-A72 and A53 CPU cores and rumors point to TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process for manufacturing. However, the expected H2 2016 launch time frame suggests that the chip won’t be ready in time for the LG G5.

Furthermore, the latest source claims that LG doesn’t think this chip is going to be quite powerful enough for its flagship LG G5 that will appear in the first half of next year. Instead, the Nuclun 2 might début in LG’s successor to the V10, which will likely hit shelves in the second half of 2016.

While the CPU rumors certainly sound powerful enough for a flagship smartphone, it may be that the GPU or RAM configuration in LG’s chip doesn’t quite match up with Qualcomm’s upcoming flagship Snapdragon 820 mobile SoC, which LG will presumably be looking to use. Furthermore, LG may not be willing to take a risk on using its mostly unknown Nuclun brand of chips in its main flagship smartphone.

LG’s Nuclun 2 SoC is still being kept tightly under wraps for now, so we should probably sit tight for some official details before making too many assumptions.