Samsung has announced its Exynos 9 Series 8895 chipset, the first Samsung-branded chip to utilize the company’s advanced 10nm FinFET technology together with “improved 3D transistor structure.” The Exynos 8895 is set to offer up to 27% great performance whilst using up to 40% less power compared with existing 14nm process technology.
The smaller the chip manufacturing process, the lower the voltage required to drive the individual components. Power (and heat) is proportional to the square of the voltage used, which means a small drop in voltage results in a larger difference in power used. Furthermore, in a smaller chip, electrons have less distance to travel, which helps improve chip performance.
The Samsung Exynos 8895 uses dual clusters of quad-core big.LITTLE application cores. The high performance quad-core cluster consists of Samsung’s second generation custom core design. The high-efficiency quad-core cluster uses the ARM Cortex-A53 design. The chipset also uses Samsung Coherent Interconnect, or SCI, technology, which the company says “allows faster computing for a wide range of applications such as artificial intelligence, and deep learning” via a heterogeneous architecture. This SCI technology cooperates with the new generation ARM Mali-G71 GPU, which includes a multi-format codec supporting 4K UHD 120fps recording and playback. Samsung’s press release states that the Mali-G71 is a very capable GPU ideal for high intensity virtual reality work. VR is likely to be an important cornerstone for Samsung’s 2017 device lineup.
Samsung has also included an integrated security processing unit to be used by enhanced security systems associated with mobile payments using iris or fingerprint recognition sensors. The security processing unit also includes a Vision Processing Unit or VPU, able to “recognize and analyze items or movements for improved video tracking, panoramic image processing, and machine vision technology.” For networking, the Samsung Exynos 8895 includes an embedded gigabit-class LTE modem. This provides up to a 1Gbps download speed using Cat. 16, five carrier aggregation. The upload speed is limited to a 150Mbps, Cat. 13 connection over two aggregated carriers. Both of these network speeds are dependent on a compatible carrier.
The Exynos 8895 combines an industry leading small process size with powerful processors and a range of abilities and technologies. Samsung has stated that the chip is currently in mass production and is set to “drive the innovation of next generation smartphones, VR headsets, and automotive infotainment systems.” It will be interesting to see what devices end up including the Exynos 8895 chipset and how well it stacks up with the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835.
SOURCE [Samsung]
