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Samsung Galaxy S23, S24 to ditch Exynos chips, claims wild report (Updated)
- A Korean outlet has claimed that Samsung is readying a Galaxy-exclusive SoC for 2025.
- The outlet adds that there won’t be in-house processors for Galaxy phones in 2023 and 2024.
- A Samsung semiconductor representative told us that “no specific decision” has been made.
Update: May 25, 2022 (1:18 AM ET): A news story yesterday (seen below) reiterated a previous claim that Samsung is readying a “Galaxy-exclusive” chipset for 2025. It added that Samsung would skip in-house processors for 2023 and 2024. Now, the company has issued a statement on the latter claim.
“While we are continuously engaging with customers to develop competitive mobile processors, no specific decision has been made,” a Samsung semiconductor division spokesperson told Android Authority.
Original article: May 24, 2022 (5:46 AM ET): We read a shaky report last week suggesting that Samsung is working on a Galaxy-exclusive chipset for 2025, but it left many questions unanswered. Now, another outlet has echoed this news while also making wild claims of its own.
Korea’s Naver outlet (h/t: Neowin) reports that Samsung will launch a joint task force of roughly 1,000 people in July with the aim of commercializing a Galaxy-only chipset by 2025. It’s claimed Samsung also has the goal of surpassing Apple Silicon.
No Exynos Galaxy S23 or S24?
The outlet further alleges that there won’t be in-house processors for Galaxy phones (presumably flagships) launching next year and in 2024:
For the first time, Samsung Electronics has decided not to release an AP for Galaxy devices in 2023 and 2024.
“It was a decision made by the top management, boldly and risky, for a long-term vision,” a Samsung official was quoted as saying, according to machine-translation.
In other words, it sounds like the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S24 series could only be equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors while the company readies its own processor for 2025. This would indeed be a risky move as it means Samsung wouldn’t be able to use Exynos SoCs in some models in the event of a chip shortage or unsatisfactory Snapdragon performance.
The likes of the Middle East, Africa, and India have all embraced Snapdragon power in 2022 after years of receiving Exynos models of Samsung flagships, leaving the EU as the only major region with Exynos power. So it seems like going to Snapdragon-only, at least for a short period of time, would be in line with the company’s current trajectory.
More questions than answers
Neither of these recent reports detail exactly how this Galaxy-only chipset would differ from current Exynos flagship processors, which are effectively exclusive to Samsung phones anyway. Exynos flagship processors found their way into phones from Chinese brand Meizu years ago, while vivo has adopted the upper mid-range Exynos 1080 in recent years. But we haven’t seen the last few generations of flagship Exynos chipsets in third-party devices, leaving Samsung as the sole Exynos flagship SoC user.
You also have to wonder whether Samsung can indeed beat Apple with this new chipset effort if it sticks to standard Arm CPU designs and Samsung’s foundry technology. In the case of the latter, Qualcomm has switched its flagship silicon from Samsung to TSMC for the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, touting a 30% efficiency improvement over the standard chipset. So Samsung’s chip manufacturing division will seemingly need to make drastic progress if a future Galaxy-exclusive chipset is to take on Apple.