Could Samsung turn to custom CPU architectures again for future Exynos chips?

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Samsung has had a rocky past when it comes to its Exynos chips. Due to performance, power efficiency, and thermal issues, the company had to stop the development of its custom CPU core designs and disband the entire team that developed those designs. It recently switched back to stock ARM CPU cores with the Exynos 2100, and the result has been satisfactory. However, it is being rumored that Samsung might start developing custom CPU cores once again.

A new rumor coming out of South Korea claims that Samsung is looking to create a new team to develop custom CPU designs based on ARM architecture. Apparently, both Qualcomm and Samsung are unhappy with the performance gains from ARM’s recently announced Cortex-X2 core, and they might consider developing custom cores for their future Exynos chips. The South Korean firm is already in talks with CPU engineers from AMD and Apple, and it may hire a senior CPU designer who worked on multiple chipsets from Apple.

Samsung is said to be in talks with a former Apple CPU designer to develop custom CPU cores for Exynos chips

It is being reported that the potential CPU designer that Samsung (System LSI) is looking to hire has demanded two things from the company: absolute rights to form a project team to develop the new architecture and complete independence to lead the development. However, you should take this information with a pinch of salt. Only time will tell if Samsung actually goes through the plan and makes its CPU designs once again, especially after what happened in the past.

The company is also developing a custom mobile GPU in partnership with AMD. The GPU is based on AMD’s latest RDNA2 architecture and has high-end features like ray tracing and variable rate shading. Maybe we will see an industry-leading Exynos chip a few years down the line with a custom CPU and a custom GPU. The company is also said to be developing a custom processor for Google’s Pixel 6 lineup.

Should Samsung tread down that path again and develop a custom CPU or stay with stock ARM cores? What are your thoughts on it? Let us know in the comments section below.