Last we heard, Samsung was working on new mobile chipsets that would use a 20nm manufacturing process, in order to offer better performance and efficiency than is possible with current 28nm chips. Now, a report from DDailyclaims that Samsung might be skipping straight ahead to a 14nm process from 28nm. From what we can glean from the poorly translated Korean, Samsung is apparently doing this to make a “comeback” in the foundry business, in the face of competition from TSMC, which is currently working on 20nm chips as well.
This 14nm chip will also have 64-bit support, and will feature ARM’s big.LITTLE octa-core configuration with Cortex-A53/A57 cores that can be operational simultaneously, with almost halved power consumption compared to the Exynos 5420 chip. Production on sample units is expected to be finished by the end of this year, and the Galaxy S5 will reportedly be the handset that debuts the new chip, which will be part of what is tentatively named the Exynos 6 series.
However, a recent report suggested that the Galaxy S5 might be announced in January, with a launch just a month later, and if this report holds true, then the Galaxy S5 just might miss out on the newer Exynos 6 chipset. As always, all of this is early speculation, so don’t anything too seriously just yet.
Samsung’s 64-bit Exynos processor said to be in final stages of development
Samsung is reportedly in the final stages of development of its 64-bit Exynos processor, according to a report published by the Korean media. Samsung had officially stated that its future smartphones would use a 64-bit chipset, and according to the report, some of Samsung’s tablets will be powered by the new CPU as well. It will once again be an octa-core chipset, but this time with four high-performance Cortex-A57 cores and equal number of energy-efficient Cortex-A53 cores (and likely with true eight-core processing).
While Apple touts the iPhone 5s and iOS 7 as being the world’s first to support 64-bit processing, Android has, in fact, been ready for 64-bit processing since its inception, thanks to its Linux underpinnings (if you’ve been wondering why 64-bit functionality is being brought to mobile devices, you really should read up on AnandTech’s extremely detailed review of the iPhone 5s). Only the necessary hardware to make use of 64-bit has been missing, and Samsung is no doubt hoping to be the first to offer that hardware, most likely with the Galaxy S5.
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