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Tag: Exynos

  • Samsung Completes Second-Gen 2nm Design (SF2P): Mass Production in 2026, Set to Power Galaxy S27 & Win Qualcomm Orders

    Although Samsung once lagged behind in the race for advanced process technologies, the company has recently accelerated its efforts in the 2nm node, signaling a strong return to form. According to a report from Wccftech, Samsung has successfully completed the foundational design of its second-generation 2nm process, SF2P, with potential mass production slated for 2026. This cutting-edge technology is expected to power the next-generation Exynos 2700 processor, which will likely debut in Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S27 flagship series.

    Samsung’s first-generation 2nm process, SF2, has already achieved a yield rate exceeding 40% and is being used in trial production of the Exynos 2600. This milestone not only marks steady progress in Samsung’s semiconductor roadmap but also lays the groundwork for future high-volume manufacturing.

    The second-generation SF2P process boasts substantial improvements in both performance and efficiency. Compared to SF2, it delivers a 12% performance uplift, 25% power reduction, and an 8% reduction in chip area. These enhancements will significantly bolster computational capabilities in mobile devices while extending battery life—a critical advantage in an increasingly performance-hungry market.

    As Samsung’s 2nm process matures, reports have emerged of renewed collaboration with Qualcomm. Sources indicate that Qualcomm is currently conducting mass production trials of several chip models using Samsung’s 2nm technology. Should the results meet expectations, Qualcomm may reintroduce a dual-foundry strategy, continuing to partner with TSMC while allocating part of its production to Samsung—thereby diversifying cost and supply chain risk.

    Such a shift would mark a significant narrowing of the gap between Samsung and TSMC in the competition for advanced foundry dominance. Currently, TSMC commands more than two-thirds of the global foundry market. If Samsung secures Qualcomm’s orders with SF2P, it could reshape the balance of power in the industry.

    Despite early setbacks with 3nm yields and supply timelines, Samsung has not retreated from the pursuit of next-generation process technologies. The transition from SF2 to SF2P reflects not only increased process maturity but also Samsung’s determination to reclaim its role at the forefront of the foundry battlefield.

    Of note, Samsung’s flagship smartphones for the past two years have relied solely on Qualcomm chipsets, while its own Exynos processors have been relegated to select regional models or mid-range devices. Compounding the challenge, Google’s upcoming Pixel 10 series—featuring the Tensor G5 processor—is reportedly being fabricated by TSMC, further underscoring market skepticism surrounding Samsung’s advanced nodes.

    Nonetheless, Samsung recently announced the Exynos 2500, a flagship SoC based on its second-generation 3nm GAA process, which is expected to power the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Galaxy Z Flip7. This move highlights the company’s ongoing semiconductor innovation and ambition to remain competitive—though widespread user acceptance remains uncertain.

    Whether Samsung’s second-generation 2nm process can win over customers like Qualcomm and seriously challenge TSMC in the realm of leading-edge fabrication remains an open question—one that the industry will be watching closely.

  • Meet “Thetis”: Samsung’s 2nm Advance in Mobile Processing

    This year, Samsung will introduce its second-generation 3nm process technology, known as SF3 (3GAP), which offers a 20% to 30% improvement in efficiency and density compared to the 4nm FinFET process. Rumor has it that the Exynos 2500 will be Samsung’s first smartphone SoC manufactured using the SF3 process and, like the Exynos 2400, it will likely employ fan-out wafer-level packaging (FoWLP).

    Exynos Galaxy S Series

    According to Wccftech, Samsung is also developing 2nm process technology, which it plans to apply to future Exynos chips. The 2nm chip is rumored to be codenamed “Thetis,” named after the sea goddess in Greek mythology, mother of Achilles. This will likely be Samsung’s first application processor (AP) developed using the 2nm process.

    Samsung plans to begin mass production of “Thetis” chips in the second half of 2025, with these chips being integrated into the Galaxy S26 series smartphones, expected to launch in 2026. Previously, Samsung unveiled its process technology roadmap through 2027, outlining the development plan following the mass production of SF3E (3nm GAA, 3GAE) in June 2022. The roadmap indicates that the development of SF2 technology will be completed by the second quarter of 2024, with mass production starting in 2025. This timeline aligns with the schedule for the “Thetis” chip.

    Industry experts believe that if Samsung successfully commercializes the 2nm process AP, it will not only create a competitive landscape with companies like Apple, Qualcomm, and MediaTek but also narrow the technological gap with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). Additionally, it could enhance Samsung’s foundry business by attracting more orders. However, considering the challenges faced with the 3nm process, finding appropriate solutions to improve yield rates is crucial for Samsung.

    A more pragmatic issue is that Samsung could reduce its reliance on Qualcomm APs. Reports have indicated that in the fourth quarter of 2023, Samsung’s orders accounted for 40% of Qualcomm’s revenue, making Samsung its largest single customer, largely due to the widespread use of Qualcomm APs in the Galaxy S23/24 series. For Samsung, this reliance has been a significant burden, impacting the profit margins of its smartphones.

  • Samsung may be developing Exynos chips for Windows on Arm laptops

    Samsung has previously launched the Galaxy series of laptops operating on Windows on Arm, powered by Qualcomm chips. However, these devices have not been particularly successful, a predicament partially attributed to Microsoft’s ecosystem construction. As Arm architecture processors continue to evolve, Samsung seems intent on bolstering the development of Exynos chips, no longer restricting them to Android system smartphones, tablets, and Chromebook products.

    Recently, Twitter user @Tech_Reve revealed that Samsung intends to penetrate the Windows on Arm laptop market with a reimagined Exynos chip. The current understanding of this chip is still quite limited, but it is rumored to incorporate an AMD RDNA series architecture GPU.

    Dell Inspiron 14

    This is not the first time such news has circulated. More than two years ago, at the beginning of 2021, rumors suggested that Samsung planned to repurpose the Exynos 2200 equipped with the AMD RDNA 2 architecture Xclipse GPU to fabricate a brand new Windows on Arm laptop. While the Exynos 2200’s performance on the Galaxy S22 series was less than stellar, the issues encountered in smartphones wouldn’t pose a barrier for laptops, given their more relaxed power consumption and thermal requirements. However, this venture eventually fell by the wayside.

    The resurfacing of similar news after two years may indicate that Samsung hasn’t ceased development on this mysterious Exynos chip. During the same period, Microsoft has been consistently advancing its Windows on Arm project. Its Surface Pro 9, featuring a version equipped with the SQ3 processor developed in collaboration with Qualcomm, is considered one of the best Windows on Arm laptops currently available.

  • Samsung’s next-gen Exynos will be used in the Galaxy S25 series

    Samsung will release a new generation of the Galaxy S23 series at the Galaxy Unpack 2023 event on February 1, including the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra models. Unlike the previous generation of products, this time they all use Qualcomm’s customized Snapdragon 8 Gen2 platform, without Samsung’s own Exynos chip.

    According to The JoongAng, due to the slow development of the next-generation Exynos chip, Samsung finally suspended the Exynos chip in its flagship smartphone. However, this does not mean that Samsung has given up the development of Exynos chips. The new plan is to be used in the future Galaxy S25 series. This means that next year’s Galaxy S24 series will still be exclusive to Qualcomm, but the deal between the two parties is only temporary.
    Vivo Exynos 2300

    After the Galaxy S22 series equipped with Exynos 2200 was exposed to performance problems last year, Samsung began to conduct a comprehensive review of its business, which also prompted the suspension of the use of Exynos chips in the Galaxy S23 and S24 series. It has previously been reported that Samsung has had heated discussions within Samsung on whether the Galaxy S23 series will be equipped with Exynos 2300, and the smartphone department has strongly advocated switching to Qualcomm’s solutions.
    It is rumored that Samsung’s next-generation Exynos chip will be manufactured using the 3nm GAA process. Samsung is currently preparing for the second-generation 3nm process. I don’t know if the new Exynos chip can catch up. Due to the low yield rate of the 3nm GAA process, many people worry whether Samsung can really solve the production problem. A Samsung employee who did not want to be named revealed that there is no exact release schedule for the next-generation Exynos chip, but the development of the Galaxy S25 series has already begun, and some projects even started earlier than the Galaxy S24 series.

  • Samsung will continue to use the AMD RDNA architectures on Exynos

    At the beginning of this year, Samsung launched the highly anticipated Exynos 2200, which was manufactured using Samsung’s 4nm EUV process and equipped with the Samsung Xclipse graphics processing unit based on the AMD RDNA 2 architecture, as well as Arm-based CPU cores and an upgraded NPU (Neural Processing Unit). Its GPU is the product of the first cooperation between Samsung and AMD, based on the RDNA 2 architecture, and inherits advanced graphics functions such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading (VRS) on the PC platform.
    Samsung Exynos RDNA architectures
    Image: Samsung
    While the Exynos 2200 ended up on the Galaxy S22 series of smartphones, the Exynos 2200 didn’t live up to expectations in terms of graphics performance. The performance of the Xclipse graphics processing unit is rumored to be affected by power consumption and heat generation. Even if the performance of the Exynos 2200 is not so ideal, Samsung officials have confirmed that AMD’s RDNA series architecture will still be used on the SoC in the future to realize other functions under its graphics framework.

    Samsung collaborated with AMD to develop a power efficient, console-level GPU for mobile devices. AMD’s GPUs are designed specifically for PCs or consoles, meaning they had to be redesigned to fit the mobile environment. Specifically, it was redesigned to accommodate the memory bandwidth of mobile, which is relatively limited, in addition to managing heat dissipation. “Based on our rich knowledge of low-power design, acquired from developing mobile SoCs, we were able to successfully achieve power efficiency and miniaturization in the first-generation product,” said Vice President Sungboem Park, a mobile processor design expert who oversees GPU development. “We focused heavily on minimizing heat, because mobile devices do not have fans like gaming consoles, while also maintaining performance so that the frames do not lag.”

    Because the Xclipse graphics processing unit used in the Exynos 2200 did not play a real role, Samsung needed to expand its cooperation with Qualcomm to make up for the lack of some product lines.

  • Samsung said it would not stop development of the Exynos series

    The Samsung Exynos 2200 was a disappointment, and even getting help from AMD didn’t fix the SoC’s litany of issues. Samsung’s problems in SoC development have a long history. When realizing the seriousness of the problem, Samsung took severe rectification measures and planned to form a new development team to solve a series of problems and obstacles encountered in the current development.

    Exynos 2200 Xclipse GPU

    Recently, it has been reported that Samsung intends to adopt Qualcomm’s solutions on the Galaxy S23 series, making it rumored that Samsung will abandon the Exynos series. According to Maeil Economic Daily, Samsung said at its recent earnings conference that it is currently restructuring its SoC business model and is working on a plan to strengthen our mid- to long-term competitiveness in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the next-generation Exynos.

    According to Fool, recently, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon also talked about the new partnership between Qualcomm and Samsung, saying that the two sides will sign a new agreement starting in 2023 to further expand the use of the Snapdragon platform and apply it more to Samsung’s future high-end Galaxy product line, in addition to smartphones, it also includes personal computers, tablet computers, virtual reality, and other products.

    In addition, the patent licensing agreement between Samsung and Qualcomm will also be extended until the end of 2030, which covers 3G, 4G, and 5G technologies and equipment, as well as future 6G standards and products. According to Qualcomm’s data, 75% of the Galaxy S22 series are equipped with Qualcomm platforms this year, and the proportion will continue to increase in the future.

    This shows that Samsung does not intend to stop the development of the Exynos series, but it is very likely that the Galaxy S23 series mobile phones equipped with the Exynos 2300 will not be seen next year. TM Roh, president of Samsung’s mobile business, said at an internal meeting that it would develop custom SoCs for Galaxy series devices, but did not disclose a specific timetable. According to people familiar with Samsung’s self-developed plan, Samsung’s first custom SoC is expected to be completed in 2023, but the Galaxy series products with new self-developed chips will not be launched until 2025.

  • Samsung is developing custom SoCs for Galaxy smartphones

    It was previously reported that TM Roh, president of Samsung’s mobile business, said at an internal meeting that Samsung would develop a custom SoC for the Galaxy series of devices. It is said that these SoCs will not necessarily stick to the Exynos brand, and it is uncertain whether they will use Arm’s Cortex cores or self-developed cores, and may even be jointly developed with Qualcomm or MediaTek.
    Exynos 2200 Xclipse GPU
    According to The Korean Economic Daily, Samsung may develop its own hardware and software at the same time, as Apple did, to create an entire ecosystem to fight its biggest rival in the smartphone space. According to people familiar with Samsung’s self-developed plan, Samsung’s first custom SoC is expected to be completed in 2023, but it will not be launched that year. Samsung plans to launch Galaxy series products equipped with self-developed chips in 2025.

    It is rumored that Samsung’s ultimate goal is to use it in its top smartphones. The biggest difference from the current Exynos 2200 is that it no longer uses Arm’s Cortex core. This means that Samsung is likely to move in the direction of Apple, that is, to create its own cores with Arm’s instruction set, and divide them into performance cores and energy efficiency cores.

    Some people in the industry said that the reason why Samsung chose Apple’s path to develop its own ecosystem is related to the huge pressure from Chinese manufacturers.

    “Without its own ecosystem, something similar to Apple’s, it will be just a matter of time before Samsung falls behind Chinese companies,” said a local industry official.

    In recent years, the Samsung Exynos series has not been as good as it could have been. Although Samsung partnered with AMD to develop Xclipse GPUs based on the RDNA 2 architecture, inheriting advanced graphics features such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading (VRS) on PC platforms, the overall performance of the Exynos 2200 has not been improved.

  • Samsung will launch Windows 10 laptops with Exynos and AMD processors

    It is said that when Qualcomm cooperated with Microsoft to launch Windows 10 on ARM many years ago, the industry was still very much looking forward to the application of this ARM processor on the desktop.

    However, the development of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series processors on the desktop platform did not go smoothly. It seemed that the industry did not pay attention until recently after Apple launched the M1 processor.

    The president of Qualcomm said earlier that Apple’s introduction of the M1 processor based on the ARM architecture and application on the MacBook is Apple’s imitation of Qualcomm.

    Qualcomm also mentioned that after Apple launched the device, a large number of customers asked whether Qualcomm provides the same solution. Obviously, Qualcomm already has a more mature solution.

    “Samsung Electronics Installs UL Validated Ergonomic Keyboard on New Samsung Laptops” by Samsung Newsroom is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    Samsung is currently preparing to bring its own Exynos processor to the Windows 10 desktop platform, that is, launching a laptop equipped with a Samsung Exynos processor.

    Samsung Exynos is also based on the ARM architecture. Currently, Exynos processors are mainly used in Samsung smartphones.

    The Samsung notebook computer equipped with the Exynos processor is expected to be released at Unpacked 2021, and it will be equipped with an Exynos 2200 processor.

    At the same time, it is expected that the display performance will not be bad with AMD GPU, but whether the overall performance can exceed the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx series chipset is temporarily unclear.

    The media said that Apple’s bringing the ARM architecture to the desktop platform has a guiding role for the industry, and more manufacturers may take similar measures in the future. For example, Microsoft has also made it clear that it will develop its own ARM processor to replace Intel in its own devices.

    Via: windowscentral

  • Samsung and Google team up to build next-generation Pixel smartphones

    Samsung Electronics is working with Google to develop the next-generation Pixel smartphone. This phone may be released as early as this year.

    The cooperation between Samsung Electronics and Google is expected to further expand its brand value and global footprint. Samsung Electronics’ goal is to become a global leader in system semiconductors by 2030.

    Previously, in 2011 and 2012, Samsung and Google had reached a mutual cooperation agreement to develop the Google Nexus series. But after Google switched to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor in its Pixel series of smartphones, the two companies ended their partnership in 2016.

    Samsung stop Exynos processors
    “Samsung Exynos Packaging” by minimalist ㅤ, Wonchan Lee is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

    Earlier, at the beginning of this month, there were reports that Google would no longer use Qualcomm’s top-level processor Snapdragon 865. Now, there are reports that the company’s upcoming Pixel 5 flagship smartphone will not use Qualcomm’s top chipset.

    Last week, sammobile reported that Samsung Electronics plans to develop a customized 5nm Exynos chipset for Google. This chipset may be used by Google as early as this year.

    It is reported that this chipset will be manufactured using Samsung’s 5nm LPE process, and may use ARM’s unpublished Mali MP20 GPU. Google may use this upcoming chipset in its next-generation Pixel smartphones, Chrome OS devices, and even data center servers.

    In addition, according to reports, Google has been exploring other alternative suppliers and even considering building their own chips for their phones before collaborating with Samsung to produce customized chipsets.