Joining Hands with Google to Develop Application Processors
Samsung Electronics is reportedly working with Google to develop a mobile application processor (AP), industry sources said on April 26. Industry analysts say that Samsung Electronics is cooperating with Google from the chip design stage in order to secure manufacturing of the chips at its foundry.
Samsung Electronics and Google can both benefit from cooperation. Samsung can increase the number of its foundry customers through production of APs for Google, while at the same time proving its AP design capabilities. Google believes that diversification of parts supply lines will reduce reliance on Qualcomm, and collaboration from the design stage will increase manufacturing productivity. Samsung expects that its cooperation with Google will help it expand its market share by winning additional contracts from global companies.
Samsung Electronics has been cooperating with its competitors at home and abroadin the field of system semiconductors. Samsung has adopted Qualcomm AP in place of its own products for its latest smartphone Galaxy S20. It was a move designed to win the latest modem chip foundry production order from Qualcomm.
Previously, Samsung Electronics has expanded the customers for its AP, including Chinese companies such as Vivo. China's Huawei also recently announced its intention to use semiconductors from Samsung Electronics to avoid U.S. sanctions, increasing Samsung Electronics' foundry customers.
In the image sensor field, Samsung Electronics continues to expand the customer base for its products. It has already supplied 180 million pixel image sensors to Xiaomi and Motorola.
LG Electronics will use Samsung Electronics' image sensors in new smartphone products. LG Electronics adopted Samsung's image sensors in its LG V50S launched in 2019.