The Korea Times reported that Samsung is working with Google to develop the next-generation Pixel smartphone, which will be released as early as this year.

Samsung plans to provide Google with a customized 5-nanometer Exynos processor chip that will be used in the next generation of Pixel smartphones. Samsung declined to confirm these reports.

The new Exynos processor chip is expected to use Samsung's 5nm LPE process, which is said to have two Cortex-A78 cores, dual Cortex-A76 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores. The chip is expected to be equipped with ARM's upcoming Mail MP20 GPU.

Industry insiders said: "Usually, a smartphone uses two different processors, so it depends on how much Google depends on Samsung's Exynos chip, which may change its sales. If Google decides to use Samsung processors, It may become a turning point for the product. "

Currently, Google is developing a new Android-based operating system called "Android 11".

In 2011 and 2012, the two companies had reached a cooperation agreement to develop the Google Nexus series, but in 2016, after Google switched to Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor to develop the pixel series, the two parties terminated the partnership.

To better transition partnerships, earlier this year, Samsung created a new custom SoC team in its device solutions business, led by Park Jin-pyo, who had previously worked in the Foundry ASIC team.

Industry observers believe that if a new partnership is reached, it will be a great opportunity for Samsung to further expand the global semiconductor market and increase production capacity.

Data from Counterpoint Research shows that Samsung ranked third in the global smartphone application processor market, accounting for 14.1% of the global market share, an increase of 2.2 percentage points year-on-year.