After years of disappointment with Exynos processors, Samsung is going all-in with Snapdragon this year. The Galaxy S23 series will debut next week powered by a special version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset globally. Rumors are that this may be a long-term plan from the Korean behemoth. Next year’s Galaxy S24 could also get an exclusive Qualcomm chip that won’t be available to any other OEM.
The chipset that powers the Galaxy S23 trio is called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy by Samsung. It’s essentially an overclocked version of the latest flagship processor from Qualcomm. While the standard solution has its prime CPU core clocked at 3.2GHz, the one that will sit inside the new Galaxies has a maximum operating frequency of 3.36GHz. It likely also gets some customizations and optimizations for the Galaxy family.
According to tipster Yogesh Brar, Samsung will do the same next year as well. The plan is to stick to these special Snapdragon solutions as long as its Galaxy-specific in-house processors aren’t ready. No, the Korean firm will not return to the same incompetent Exynos chipsets. Instead, the company’s mobile division will develop custom processors for Galaxy flagships. It’s not known whether that development will be from scratch or it will take the latest Exynos chip and optimize it with deeper hardware-software integration.
Samsung will eventually make custom processors for Galaxy flagships
For the uninitiated, Samsung’s Exynos processors are developed by the System LSI division. It functions independently from the mobile division, aka Samsung MX. The latter buys Exynos chips from the former to use in Galaxy devices. It’s free to buy processors from any brand, including Qualcomm and Mediatek. But buying from System LSI means more business for the Samsung Group as a whole. However, the poor performance of Exynos solutions means the mobile division is ditching those for its latest flagships and switching to Qualcomm.
But the story doesn’t end there. According to the Korean media, Samsung’s smartphone unit has formed an internal team to develop custom processors for Galaxy devices. At least for flagship models. However, that will take time. Rumors are that the first custom Galaxy processor may arrive earliest by 2025. Until then, the company plans to use Qualcomm’s latest flagship solutions. And Samsung won’t take the standard chipset, but a special version of it. The journey begins next week with the launch of the Galaxy S23 series. The new flagships arrive on February 1.