Samsung might be developing a custom chipset for Google and its future Pixels
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Despite the recent disdain for Samsung's own line of Exynos chipsets, which perform worse than their Qualcomm counterparts, the South Korean giant is unlikely to abandon its in-house line of chipsets anytime soon. For one, Qualcomm's hard grip on the US market is forcing Samsung to use Snapdragon chipsets locally, but almost all other regions across the globe are usually getting Exynos-powered Samsung phones. And from the looks of it, Google could be partnering up with Samsung to loosen its own dependence on Qualcomm as well.
According to rumors circulating on the web, Samsung could be developing a custom Exynos chipset for Google, probably for its own Pixel lineup of phones. It will be manufactured on Samsung's 5nm LPE die process and will feature two Cortex-A78 CPU cores, two Cortex-A76 cores, and a cluster of four Cortex-A55 cores. Graphics will be dealt with by ARM's unannounced Mali MP20 GPU, though Google seems to be stripping Samsung's ISP (image signal processor) and NPU (neural-processing unit) in favor of its own units of the same type.
This falls in line with reports from last year that Google is keen on developing its own custom chipset and even hired a roster of veteran engineers for the task, but Google could have settled with Samsung's wares for now. This custom Exynos chipset will likely make it into a future Pixel generation, possibly the sixth generation. Depending on the specs, the chip could also make it into the affordable Pixel a-lineup of phones.
As a reminder, the Pixel 5 could be powered by the Snapdragon 765G chipset, which would signal a paradigm change for Pixel flagships. Despite that's not a flagship chipset in the same tier as the Snapdragon 865, it's still a pretty fast silicon that supports 5G but keeps the price down.
With Google I/O 2020 being canceled altogether, the Pixel 4/4a XL still unofficial, and the coronavirus disrupting plans, we might have to wait until the fall before we hear any official news on Google's Pixel lineup. As we know more, so will you.
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