Samsung to roll out new mobile chip for Galaxy S7: report

Samsung Electronics will soon roll out its new mobile application processor, the Exynos 8890, which is likely to be mounted on the next flagship smartphone Galaxy S7, according to news reports.

Samsung will mass produce its own mobile chip as late as December at its production lines in Giheung, Gyeonggi Province, according to a local news outlet.

Samsung refused to comment on the production plans of the next-generation chip model.

The new Exynos model will be Samsung’s first customized application processor chip built upon U.K. chip designer ARM’s core architecture, meaning that Samsung will add some tweaks to a standard chip design by the U.K. firm to boost performance.

Apple and Qualcomm are among several application processor manufacturers that have customized ARM-designed chips in order to have the mobile processors optimized for mobile devices.

An industry official commented: “Designing its own mobile core will allow Samsung, which produces both smartphones and semiconductors, to gain competitive edge over Apple and Qualcomm in reducing cost and optimizing chip products for smartphones.”

Samsung, one of the largest chip fabrication firms, is also said to be rolling out Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820, which will also go through a customization process by the Korean firm.

The new Snapdragon chip is forecast to power the Galaxy S7 alongside the Exynos model.

The new Exynos 8890 is clocked at 2.3 gigahertz and has reportedly set a new high in a benchmark test, scoring a combined 6,908 points in a single-core and a multi-core test, beating that of Apple’s A9 featured in iPhone 6S at 6,817 points.

Going full throttle to develop its own customer core, Samsung is reportedly making efforts to attract chip architects including Jim Keller, who left U.S. chipmaker AMD last month. Jim Keller is credited with developing Apple’s A4 and A5 processors deployed in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

But Samsung dismissed the report as groundless, saying the news about hiring the former AMD executive was no more than “an unfounded rumor.”

By Kim Young-won  (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)