LG wades into processor development with G3 Screen

LG Electronics is getting into smartphone processor development with an octa-core chip that features in its G3 Screen smartphone, which went on sale Friday in South Korea.

The Nuclun mobile application processor uses ARM’s big.Little design for multitasking, with four 1.5GHz cores for high performance and four 1.2GHz cores for less intensive jobs, the South Korean company said.

It supports LTE-Advanced Cat. 6 networks, which allow for download speeds up to 225Mbps, which are three times faster than regular 4G LTE connections.

LG wants to optimize its application processor for its products in order to offer exclusive advantages in the crowded smartphone market, said Claire Jang, a spokeswoman for LG in Seoul.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) makes the chips.

LG does not intend to become a chipset maker, Jang said.

The company has relied on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor for its G3 smartphone lines. Apple and Samsung Electronics are the only two other mobile phone makers using their own application processors.

LG’s G3 smartphones have been selling fairly well and its mobile sales are expected to boost the company’s third-quarter profit 3.3 percent from a year ago, Kim Ji-san, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, wrote in a research note.

The flagship G3 smartphone has been popular especially in North America and Europe. LG sold about 4 million G3 models including the G3 Beat, G3 Vista and G3 Stylus in the third quarter, Kim wrote. The company is scheduled to report its third-quarter earnings next week.

Specifications for the G3 Screen are similar to the original G3, with a 5.9-inch, full-HD IPS display and 1W speaker. It has the biggest screen among the company’s other LTE-A Cat 6 phones, according to LG.