Samsung to power next-gen iPods

Not content with collecting every one’s drool with a never-ending onslaught of incredible (and likely thin) mobile phones, Samsung has its paws in just about every other facet of the electronics biz as well. They’re already supplying Apple with flash memory for the current set of iPod nanos, and have now just won the contract to dish out the MP3 media processor chips to Steve Jobs and company for the next generation of wafer thin music players.

Lesser known PortalPlayer was lobbying hard to get the contract, but we found out last week that they weren’t going to be the people for the job. Now we know who is. The executives over at the Korean company don’t hesitate when it comes to tooting their own horn: Jon Kang of Samsung is quoted as saying that he “knew PortalPlayer would take a dive… I knew that we would win this design.”

Samsung is on the rise, and this agreement with Apple is the company’s largest LSI chip deal ever. Now we just need to find out more deets about the secretive next-gen nanos. Like, what scratch-prone casing are they going to turn to this time around?