Once upon a time, Samsung was proud of the chips that they put in their smartphones. The Exynos brand used to actually mean something. But these days, it’s Qualcomm or bust. No one can touch the Snapdragon 800, except maybe Apple with the A7, but that’s a whole other platform. When you focus on the Android, you want a phone or tablet with a Qualcomm chip, end of discussion. Samsung obviously doesn’t like that, and they plan on doing something about it this year.

According to The Korea Herald, Samsung is working on Exynos chips that feature an integrated LTE-Advanced modem. The term used in the article, “ModAP”, simply stands for modem and application processor. Qualcomm’s been selling “ModAp” chips forever, but you know them better as Snapdragons. The article also goes on to say that Samsung may also launch 64-bit chips this year, though that’s not certain yet.

When will we see phones using these new Samsung chips? One analyst says the second half of this year, possibly with the introduction of the Note 4, but at this point it’s too early to tell. Either way, making a chip that can support LTE-Advanced is one thing. Convincing the American operators that an Exynos LTE modem is just as good as a Qualcomm modem is another thing altogether. Remember that when it comes to the United States, it’s the mobile operators that dictate the terms, so you could very well see them turning their back on Samsung and insisting that they go Qualcomm.