Samsung LSI might lose its Exynos chip design business to Samsung MX

Currently, Samsung’s LSI arm is responsible for the Exynos chip design, but internal talks suggest that the task might be transferred over to Samsung MX (Mobile Experience). That is the division responsible for the Galaxy smartphones.

The idea behind it is to bring the chip design team under the Samsung MX umbrella so they can all work on improving the Exynos chips’ performance and overall user experience. Samsung’s Foundry business will still be manufacturing the SoCs, though.

However, there seems to be internal disagreement over that move, the report suggests. Some oppose the decision, others are on board. After all, such restructuring requires a lot of planning.

The reason why Samsung is flirting with the idea is likely due to Samsung LSI’s poor performance in recent years. The LSI arm missed the deadline with the Galaxy S25 series and couldn’t deliver the Exynos 2500 on time, and the same thing happened with the Galaxy S23 series. And when the team actually delivers, the Exynos alternative to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon is often lacking in some aspects.

But even if everything goes smoothly with the restructuring, Samsung MX could face another problem – the Samsung Foundry division. It had some problems of its own in the past few years also. It’s finding it hard to keep up with TSMC, lagging behind in manufacturing process tech.

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