LG, just like its likewise South Korea-based rival Samsung, is a smartphone manufacturing company that also makes several components used by other smartphone manufacturers. However, while LG is manufacturing components such as batteries and displays, the company does not have as much experience as Samsung when it comes to designing its own smartphone chipsets.

That could soon be changing though, as reports are claiming, through anonymous insiders operating within the industry, that LG has been in discussions with Intel since earlier in the year for a partnership on developing a smartphone processor.

The collaboration between LG and Intel is now supposedly being taken to the next step, though no other details on the team-up has been revealed.

LG attempted to release a smartphone processor last year named the LG Nuclun. The company's first smartphone processor was widely seen as a flop, due to both its poor performance and its high power consumption.

The alleged partnership with Intel would seemingly assist LG in developing a smartphone processor without these red flags. Whether the team-up would involve the upcoming LG Nuclun 2 or another series of mobile chipsets, however, is not yet clear.

There have been recent rumors that the release of the LG Nuclun 2 was delayed due to LG's plan to integrate the XMM 7360 LTE-A radio of Intel into the chipset. There has also been reports that the chip could be manufactured on Intel 14nm or TSMC's 16nm node technologies, showing that LG and Intel have been linked for some time.

While the agreement between LG and Intel remains a rumor as there has been no official confirmation from the companies involved, such a partnership, if true, could allow LG to pull closer to the might of Samsung and its dominant presence not just in the smartphone market, but also in terms of being a supplier for smartphone components.