LG to launch new phone with its own 'Odin' AP

LG Electronics, Korea's second largest handset vendor, will launch a new phone later this month that is, for the first time, powered by its self-made application processor. Odin, LG's AP, is a System on a Chip processor for mobile, like Qualcomm's Snapdragon or Samsung's Exynos.

According to sources familiar with the matter, LG is planning to launch the new Odin-powered phone as early as this week. "The launch of the new model (of handset) that is powered by LG's self-developed AP is imminent," one of the sources told ZDNet Korea.

Sources said the phone will be a G3 derivative, and will be named as such. It is as yet unknown whether the handset will be launched globally, or only in Korea.

Rumors of an LG-made AP, dubbed "Odin" by the media, have been going on for years but nothing has been unveiled commercially. Initial speculation was that the AP will likely go into flagship phones, but it is more likely that it will be powering a derivative model as a "test-run," sources said. The new AP will be based on ARM Coretex-A15 architecture (already seen in Tegra and Exynos APs) and supports full-HD resolution with the ARM big.LITTLE multi-core processor configuration.

Sources say LG has been preparing for the AP since 2012, but unexpected overheating and rapid electricity consumption problems forced the company to repeatedly postpone launch.

The lucrative mobile AP market in the Android camp is currently dominated by Qualcomm's Snapdragon, with Intel, Samsung and MediaTek trying desperately to get a piece of the action. Apple uses its own A-series processors for its gadgets with the most recent ones being A8 and A8X. Samsung is noteworthy for also developing its own in-house AP, Exynos.

An LG spokesman declined to comment on the matter.