Samsung May Bring Its Own Custom CPU Cores in Exynos 2800

Samsung is reportedly planning a big change for its Exynos mobile chips. A fresh leak suggests the company may design its own custom CPU cores for the upcoming Exynos 2800 chip in 2027. This move could give the Korean giant more control over its hardware while reducing dependence on external partners like ARM.

Samsung may return to custom CPU designs

For years, Samsung has relied on ARM’s CPU designs for its Exynos chips. However, that could change in the future. According to a tipster on Weibo (via Android Headlines), Samsung may use in-house CPU designs with the Exynos 2800. While the tipster did not share the reasons behind this decision, we can assume the company is aiming for customized performance and optimization for its Galaxy devices.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Samsung has attempted to design its own CPU cores. The company used its Mongoose CPU cores in Exynos SoCs for flagship smartphones between 2016 and 2020. While these cores were designed to deliver higher performance, the chips often ran hot and consumed more battery. As a result, the firm stopped using its custom designs, with the Exynos 990 being the last flagship chip to feature Mongoose CPU cores.

Apart from developing its own custom CPU cores, Samsung is also reportedly working on a custom GPU for its mobile chips, starting with Exynos 2800. The company currently uses AMD’s RDNA graphics architecture for some of its flagship processors. Of course, this allowed the firm to achieve solid graphics performance. But it might have limited graphics optimization capabilities on Galaxy devices.

For now, the industry is closely watching Samsung’s latest Exynos 2600. The chip features the Xclipse 960 GPU, based on AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture. It also uses a tri-cluster CPU based on the Arm v9.3 architecture. Samsung may power its upcoming Galaxy S26 and S26+ with this chip in select regions, as well as Galaxy Z Flip 8 globally that launches in the summer of 2026.