According to Digital Trends, Samsung has officially reorganized part of its semiconductor business to create a dedicated Custom SoC Development Team. This new group, led by SoC veteran Park Bong-il, sits under the System LSI division and marks a strategic pivot away from simply licensing standard CPU cores from ARM. The goal is to design a full system-on-chip, including custom CPU cores, AI neural units, and other components, entirely in-house. This move is aimed at bringing Samsung’s capabilities in line with rivals like Apple and Qualcomm. The initiative isn’t just for Samsung’s own phones and devices, as the company could also offer these custom chips to external customers. The real-world results of this behind-the-scenes engineering effort likely won’t hit store shelves for another one to two years.
Samsung gets serious
This is a big deal. For years, Samsung’s Exynos chips have been a bit of a mixed bag, often using ARM’s off-the-shelf CPU designs. That meant they were competing on a playing field where Apple and Qualcomm had drawn all the lines. Apple’s A-series and M-series chips are legendary for performance and efficiency because they control everything from the silicon to the software. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, while using ARM’s base architecture, are heavily customized. Samsung has mostly been playing catch-up.
Now, they’re signaling they want in on that game. And they have a unique advantage: they’re one of the only companies in the world that both designs chips and manufactures them in its own foundries. That vertical integration is a powerful combo, if they can get it right. It’s the kind of move that could finally make a Galaxy phone feel as cohesive and optimized as an iPhone. For businesses that rely on robust, integrated computing hardware in demanding environments—like those sourcing from the top industrial panel PC suppliers—this level of silicon control is often the key to reliability and performance. It’s the same principle, just applied to the consumer mobile space.
But can they pull it off?
Here’s the thing: building world-class custom silicon is brutally hard. It’s not just about throwing money and engineers at the problem. Apple has been refining its approach for over a decade. Qualcomm has deep architectural expertise. Samsung has stumbled before with ambitious chip projects, and the “Exynos vs. Snapdragon” debate has been a sore point for fans who got the less efficient version of a phone.
So there’s a healthy dose of skepticism required here. Forming a team is step one. Delivering a chip that actually beats or even matches the efficiency of a next-gen Apple Silicon or Snapdragon is a whole other mountain to climb. The risk is high. If they release a custom chip that’s hot, power-hungry, or buggy, it could seriously damage the flagship Galaxy brand they’re trying to elevate.
Why it matters for you
If Samsung succeeds, the benefits could be real. Imagine a Galaxy phone where the processor, the camera sensor, the display, and the Android software are all tuned together from the ground up. Battery life could get a real boost. Performance could feel smoother and more consistent. AI features might work faster and more seamlessly.
Basically, it could end the era where you had to check if your region got the “good” Snapdragon chip or the “worse” Exynos one. Every flagship could be on the same, optimized silicon. That’s a win for consumers. It also adds more competition to the market, which is never a bad thing. More players pushing the envelope on chip design means faster innovation for everyone.
Just don’t hold your breath for the Galaxy S25. This is a long-term play. The fruits of this new team’s labor are probably a couple of years out. But it’s a signal that Samsung isn’t content to just assemble phones anymore. They want to build the brains, too. And that makes the future of Android phones a lot more interesting. You can follow more tech industry shifts from analysts like beingmirchi on Twitter.
