Samsung released its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone to much fanfare in a grand launch event in New York on March 14 but the company did not clarify the processor type for the device except saying that the chip variants will change depending on the regions. Clearing the air of confusion, Qualcomm has confirmed that the U.S. variants of Galaxy S4 will be powered by its new Snapdragon 600 processor. This, however, does not come as a surprise as it was heavily rumored that Samsung will power it device either with Qualcomm's S4 Pro and Samsung's own Exynos 5 Octa.

The news is of great importance to Galaxy lovers in the U.S. as it's a known fact that U.S. models of handset is likely to carry the Qualcomm processor rather than Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa for the former's strong relationships with American carriers. Although Galaxy S4 is not the first phone to feature the Snapdragon 600 chip, it would be the first device to hit the U.S. market. Recently announced HTC One and LG Optimus G Pro have the same chip on the board.

"We are proud to say that the newest Snapdragon 600 processor is at the heart of the Galaxy S4 in select regions, providing the efficient processing and cutting-edge features needed to deliver these kinds of innovative smartphone user experiences," Qualcomm said in a blog post. According to the company, Snapdragon 600 processors include the following:

- Quad-core 1.9Ghz Krait CPU for fast, efficient asynchronous processing

- LTE Cat 3 network support

- 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM

- Hexagon QDSP6 for ultra-low power audio playback and video enhancements

- Speed enhanced Adreno^TM 320 GPU for high-end 3D graphics and compute processing

- 1080p HD video capture and playback

- HD multichannel sound with DTS-HD^TM and Dolby® Digital Plus^TM audio

- OpenGL ES 3.0 conformant

Meanwhile, Galaxy S4 will be powered by Samsung's internally developed Exynos 5 Octa processor in Asia, Europe and other regions. The company said it will begin the production of the chip sometime in the second quarter of this year. Although not many details are out about the powerful processor, it's learned that its architecture will based on the Cortex-A15 chip and it will feature a mixture of the Cortex-A15 and the A7 to offer the best of both worlds: four Cortex-A15 cores for intensive tasks, along with four more Cortex-A7 cores that handle the lighter stuff, Slash Gear reports. The company said the aforementioned setup offers over 70 percent more efficiency compared to using only Cortex-A15 cores. Samsung said the chip will be manufactured using its latest 28-nanometer design that increases power efficiency and produces less heat.