Samsung and AMD introduced in June 2019 that the 2 would workforce as much as convey cellular GPUs to Samsung Exynos chips, with Samsung System LSI (the Exynos division of Samsung Electronics) licensing the Radeon GPU IP from AMD in a multi-year settlement. Yesterday, in a presentation for the Exynos 2100, Samsung gave an replace on the partnership. Samsung LSI President and GM Dr. Inyup Kang introduced, “We’re working along with AMD, and we’ll have a next-generation cellular GPU within the subsequent flagship product.”
So an AMD GPU is coming fairly quickly, within the subsequent “flagship product.” Cool. There have been some differing interpretations on the Web of what “flagship product” means on this context. Does that imply the subsequent flagship Samsung smartphone or the subsequent flagship Exynos chip? Since Kang works at Samsung LSI, the Exynos division, we will go along with the interpretation that “product” means the subsequent Exynos chipset, due out a full 12 months from now. The opposite interpretation, {that a} new GPU would arrive someday this 12 months on a Galaxy Word, Fold, or no matter you need to interpret “flagship smartphone” as, can be very out of the extraordinary since it might imply killing the brand new Exynos 2100 lower than a 12 months after launch.
At present, Samsung would not throw the total weight of the corporate behind its personal SoC division, as an alternative splitting the world distribution between Exynos and the Exynos divisions’ greatest SoC rival, Qualcomm. Worldwide customers have but to see what the brand new Exynos 2100 is like, however beforehand, the Exynos variations of Samsung telephones have been so maligned that Samsung customers started a petition begging for Qualcomm SoCs to be bought of their territory as an alternative. For 2020’s Galaxy S20, Samsung additionally pulled the Exynos SoC from its residence market of South Korea, opting to ship a US-made Qualcomm chip as an alternative, a transfer that reportedly “humiliated” the Exynos division.
Together with this AMD deal, there are some indicators that Samsung may be placing a heavier give attention to its Exynos SoCs. The motto of yesterday’s presentation was “Exynos is again,” seeming to point that Samsung admits issues have been unhealthy up to now. And as we speak, Domino’s Pizza style, the division is completely sorry about that and is popping over a brand new leaf. Final 12 months, the flagship Exynos was the “Exynos 990,” however this 12 months the flagship has a brand new mannequin quantity scheme, “Exynos 2100,” seemingly tying it nearer to the flagship Samsung smartphone, the Galaxy S21. Presumably, subsequent 12 months’s AMD-GPU-Packing Exynos would be the Exynos 2200, and it’ll debut within the Galaxy S22.
However will Samsung ship Exynos to the remainder of the world?
However will any of this transformation Samsung’s SoC distribution plan? The issue with any Samsung Exynos information is that it is not relevant to round half of Samsung’s consumer base. Sometimes, the US, China, Japan, Latin America, and (recently) Korea get Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, whereas Europe, India, and the remainder of the world get Exynos. Samsung has but to point that it needs to change to Exynos in every single place, and doing so can be a significant upheaval in Samsung’s product line, manufacturing capabilities, and within the SoC market at massive.
In the meantime, a greater GPU shouldn’t be an incredible assault vector if Samsung needs to go to SoC warfare with Qualcomm. Qualcomm’s strength is in its modem know-how and connectivity patents, and it has wielded its patent aggressively sufficient to offer itself a monopoly over the Android SoC market in locations just like the US. The 2 corporations are even in terms of CPU know-how; they each use off-the-shelf ARM designs. At this time, Samsung makes use of off-the-shelf ARM Mali GPUs, whereas Qualcomm has its personal graphics division known as “Adreno.”
Apparently, with the Samsung partnership, AMD’s graphics division would be the progenitor of two of the cellular market’s main GPU implementations. Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs are the result of a wedding with ATI’s outdated cellular GPU division. Qualcomm and ATI partnered as much as design Qualcomm’s first Adreno GPUs circa 2006, and Qualcomm ultimately simply purchased ATI’s cellular “Imageon” group outright, forming Qualcomm’s in-house GPU division. AMD’s graphics division comes from a later buy of the remainder of ATI, giving us AMD Radeon. At this time, you possibly can nonetheless see an homage to AMD’s GPU division in Qualcomm’s branding—”Adreno” is an anagram of “Radeon.”
