It is rumored that the Samsung MX department will form an AP solution development team to develop a Galaxy-specific chip

According to Korean media thelec, Samsung Electronics has established an AP solution development team within the MX division. Vice President Choi Won-joon, who recently took over as the Director of the Development Office of the MX Division, will also serve as the team leader.

Regarding the AP solution development team, there are currently two speculations: one is a team created by the MX division to lead the development of smartphone application processors (APs); the other is to form a team to develop exclusive APs for Galaxy.

On December 14, industry insiders confirmed that Samsung Electronics recently established an AP solution development team within the MX division through organizational reorganization. Cui Yuanjun, director of MX Development Office, will also lead the AP solution development team. The size and role of the AP Solutions development team is unclear.

Won-joon Choi received his BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Seoul National University, and his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University in the United States. After working as a researcher at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), he was in charge of chip design at Aderos. Aderos is a wireless communication chip company that was acquired by Qualcomm in 2011. Cui Yuanjun also switched to Qualcomm, where he was in charge of wireless chip development. In 2016, Won-joon Choi was hired as the leader of the next-generation product development team in the wireless division of Samsung Electronics. After that, he served as the head of the strategic product development team of Samsung Electronics MX Division and was appointed as the head of the MX Development Office and the AP Solution Development Team.

It is worth noting that the "AP Solution Development Team" was created within the MX Division rather than the System LSI Division. This is because the System LSI Department within the DS Department of Samsung Electronics already has the title of "Director of AP Development".

Therefore, for this new team, there are many interpretations from the outside world. Some believe that the "AP solution development team" is a team dedicated to optimizing AP for Galaxy smartphones.

AP is a key semiconductor responsible for data communication and computing in smartphones, which determines the data processing speed and power consumption of smartphones. The MX department in charge of smartphones has obtained APs from Qualcomm and MediaTek, and the Exynos series APs developed by the DS department of Samsung Electronics are also used in some devices. However, since the "Galaxy S22" was embroiled in a controversy related to the "Game Optimization Service (GOS)" earlier this year, questions have been raised about Exynos' performance. This makes the new generation flagship smartphone Galaxy S23 only equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon AP.

If you use the Android mobile phone system running software "Geekbench" for a comparative test, the iPhone 14's score is significantly higher than that of the Galaxy 22. This is because Apple's own AP chip installed in the iPhone is well optimized. Therefore, Samsung Electronics is also trying to support the installation of AP optimization in Galaxy smartphones and conduct compatibility testing and verification through the AP solution development team.

It is also believed that the MX department established an AP solution development team to develop APs equipped with the Galaxy series by itself. In particular, Vice President Choi Won-joon, who was appointed as the head of the development department of the MX department, took over the position of the leader of the AP solution development team.

“There seems to be no reason to create a separate AP solution development team within the MX division dedicated to AP optimization,” said an industry source.

News that Samsung Electronics will build a dedicated AP for Galaxy has been circulating since the beginning of this year. “We are in discussions with several partners” to develop “Galaxy-only APs” and "Consider developing your own AP". It takes a lot of time because there are so many things to do.

"Galaxy-only AP" literally means an AP optimized for Galaxy smartphones, not a general-purpose AP. After Roh Tae-moon proposed "Galaxy-only APs," rumors abounded that the System LSI division and the MX division would form a special team and create dedicated APs.

Recently, however, there has been a situation where new APs are being developed under the leadership of the MX Division rather than the System LSI Division. Currently, the MX division is developing an AP exclusively for Galaxy, excluding unnecessary functions compared to existing Exynos. The initial AP design is in charge of the MX department, and the subsequent layout and back-end support work is coordinated with the System LSI department. There are also rumors that the US MX division has started developing the AP as a secret project.

Another industry insider said, "It remains to be seen whether the MX department can be called a 'Galaxy-exclusive AP' even if the AP is self-developed." At the same time, a Samsung Electronics source said, "We cannot officially disclose detail."