Could Samsung use MediaTek chips in future smartphones?

Samsung has historically used Qualcomm processors in its smartphones as well as its own in-house Exynos processors, but a third brand could get added to that list. Last week, MediaTek chairman Tsai Ming-kai named Samsung as a partner. And today, Arthur Wang, MediaTek’s senior director, confirmed that Samsung is indeed a customer.

In an interview about the Allview P9 Energy, Wang was asked about the partnership, where he confirmed that Samsung was a partner and couldn’t comment on unannounced products. It’s your typical cannot confirm or deny response, so we can only speculate at this point.

It’s likely that we won’t see any MediaTek processors in any flagship smartphones, though it wouldn’t necessarily be bad to see the all-new Helio X30 processor in future handsets. It’s an insane 10-core processor, featuring four Cortex A73 cores clocked at 2.8GHz, four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.2GHz, and two Cortex A35 cores clocked at 2GHz. Not to even mention that it has support for up to 8GB of RAM, virtual reality and a 26-megapixel camera. It would be an insane upgrade over the Snapdragon 820 and even Samsung’s own in-house chips.

Either way, and as GSM Arena points out, the partnership between MediaTek and Samsung is likely only processors for low- and mid-range smartphones. Currently, Chinese semiconductor company Spreadtrum supplies chips for Samsung’s lower-end models, so MediaTek would be a nice replacement.

We haven’t heard any official details, but a Helio X30 processor in a possible Galaxy S8 doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea.