What you need to know
- Samsung is reportedly joining forces with ARM and AMD to dethrone Qualcomm as the No.1 Android AP maker
- The company is said to be working with ARM to jointly develop a custom Cortex-X CPU for its next Exynos chipset.
- Samsung's next-gen Exynos chipset is also expected to feature a custom GPU from AMD.
In November last year, Samsung announced that it was stopping development work on its custom CPU cores for Exynos chipsets. The company's next-gen flagship Exynos chipset, which will likely power the Galaxy S30 series, is expected to have ARM's off-the-shelf cores. According to a new report from Business Korea, Samsung is aiming to become the No.1 Android application processor (AP) maker by partnering with ARM and AMD.
Now that Huawei's HiSilicon subsidiary can no longer develop custom Kirin chips due to U.S. sanctions, Samsung remains the only Android OEM that uses its own chips. While the company's Exynos 990 isn't quite on par with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 and 865+ chipsets in terms of performance, its next flagship Exynos processor is expected to be a massive improvement in all areas.
The report claims Samsung is currently working with ARM to create a new CPU based on the Cortex-X core. Announced in May this year, ARM's Cortex-X1 design promises a 30% improvement in peak performance over the Cortex-A77. It also offers 22% higher single-thread performance when compared to the latest ARM Cortex-A78.
Graphics performance is another area where Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets have had the upper hand over Samsung's Exynos chips. To overcome this weakness, Samsung is planning to use a custom GPU from AMD in its flagship Exynos chipset for 2021. The report further claims the neural processing units (NPUs) and modems that will be used in future Exynos chips will be superior to Qualcomm's offerings.
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