The South Korean Korean government wil invest more than US$34 million in the following five years in the development of a mobile CPU. The government is planning to commercialize a mid-range mobile CPU that can be used in wearable devices and Internet of Things (IoT) products, the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) revealed on May 13. Further plans include the development of a high-performance mobile processor by 2025 that can be utilized in smartphones and tablet PCs.

The move could help local fabless semiconductor companies reduce the royalties paid for application processors to other companies such as British ARM.

Samsung Electronics, Adchips, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and the Korea Electronics Technology Institute have been developing mobile processors. But those chips have been fully commercialized.