It's no secret that Apple's push into making its own custom chips, known as Apple silicon, is one of the reasons that its latest iPhones, iPads, and Macs are such massive hits.
Apple's silicon has led to crushing defeats for its best Android phone rivals, including the best Samsung Galaxy phones, with benchmarks showing night and day differences between Apple's chips and the best Qualcomm Snapdragon or Samsung Exynos chips.
Clearly Samsung has taken note, at least according to a new report from SamMobile, citing a South Korean news outlet, which suggests the company is thinking about setting up a "dream team" to build its own custom chips for future Samsung Galaxy series phones.
On its face, the decision would make a lot of sense: Samsung Electronics already produces many of the components needed to build smartphone chips under its semiconductor unit.
To help realise its dream, Samsung is considering establishing a team to focus specifically on high-performance chips that use very little power. SamMobile says that Samsung has decided to pause work on its Exynos chips in the future, relying instead on Qualcomm in the meantime.
Reached for comment, Samsung said: "While we are continuously engaging with customers to develop competitive mobile processors, no specific decision has been made."
The South Korean report suggests Samsung plans to outfit the team with around 1,000 staff and set a goal of 2025 for commercialising these new chips, something the company sees as critical both for its smartphones and general business.
SamMobile reports that TM Roh, who leads Samsung’s mobile division, and Park Yong-in, head of Samsung’s LSI division, are leading the project.
The biggest efficiency that Samsung wants is for a chip that is specifically designed for the device at hand, which is similar to Apple's M-series chips for the Mac and A-series chips for the iPhone and iPad.
Ensuring that hardware and software work in harmony is the easiest way to unlock extra performance while reducing battery life and emitting less heat.
Any chips that are produced would likely remain exclusive to Samsung devices, including any future foldables or tablets.
It'll be interesting to see what Samsung does but the dominance that Apple has thanks to its chips has clearly caught the interest of its nearest smartphone rival.
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