LG may be moving back into the mobile chips game, potentially creating in-house system-on-a-chip slices of silicon for its own smartphones and connected devices.
As an electronics giant of some size, LG has a lot of manufacturing clout, but its last attempt to create a chipset, known as NUCLUN, didn’t really go far beyond a South Korea-exclusive LG G3 Screen handset; the octa-core ARM-based chip wasn’t a great performer and saw LG’s chip making end as soon as it started.
But according to a trademark application with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, spotted by GSNinfo Netherlands, LG has registered the ‘LG KROMAX Processor’ and ‘LG EPIK Processor’ names, which would signal that the company plans to develop its own chip.
According to the filing, LG has classified it with the term “chips” and “multiprocessors chips”; that could indicate it may make a form of NUCLUN 2, tapping into ARM Cortex processor designs and instruction sets, or create chipset designed to run smart devices, such as LG’s smart TVs or its connected washing machines.
For the time being we can only speculate where LG’s chips will end up, and indeed if the company will even make them, as it already has Intel making ARM-based chips for its devices.
If LG does go ahead and produce its own chipsets, they are likely to make their debut in lower-end devices, as LG’s flagship LG G6 sports a tried-and-tested Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip, and for the next flagship we doubt LG would risk upsetting the apple cart by using it to debut its own chips.
We’ll have to wait and see what LG ends up doing with its chips, but in the meantime we can be distracted with the finding out what chipset Google opts for with its next-generation Pixel phones, set to be revealed imminently.
Related: Everything you need to know about the Pixel 2
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
