Samsung may drop Exynos for Snapdragon-only flagships, and it is truly an excellent factor?

Up to date (November 5, 2022; 12:30 PM ET): Quotes from Qualcomm executives have been added to the article.

Authentic Article (Might 27, 2022): Qualcomm has Snapdragon, MediaTek has Dimensity, Google has Tensor, and Samsung has Exynos — there are a variety of smartphone chip makers out there. Samsung’s Exynos chipset sequence has been right here for a very long time, although one would possibly argue they are not the perfect. Regardless that Samsung’s Exynos chips might have didn’t impress customers (and the entire tech neighborhood), the corporate’s efforts in direction of bettering its customized silicon have not slowed down.

Final 12 months, Samsung partnered with AMD to enhance the graphics efficiency of its chipsets. It additionally turned one of many first chipset makers to unveil a 4nm node structure chip for smartphones, the Exynos 2200. The corporate additionally adopted the newest Arm Cortex-X2 core to enhance the CPU throughput of the chipset.

Regardless of the efforts, the Exynos 2200 nonetheless didn’t impress the customers. Adam Conway of our sister web site XDA Builders confronted a lot of points together with his Exynos 2200 variant of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely. However it seems that Samsung remains to be not giving up, as a few of the details about the upcoming Exynos 2300 has leaked.

Exynos 2300 is reportedly beneath growth

Now, a brand new report from GalaxyClub (by way of Sammobile) claims that Samsung is engaged on two next-generation Exynos chipsets. Whereas particulars of the next-gen mid-range Exynos chipset (which is able to include the mannequin quantity S5E8535) aren’t identified, the dependable tipster Roland Quandt has revealed a few of the details about the upcoming flagship Exynos chipset.

The report claims that the Exynos 2300 will include the mannequin quantity S5E9935. For reference, the Exynos 2200 got here with the mannequin quantity S5E9925, so it is secure to say that the chipset with mannequin quantity S5E9935 is the next-generation flagship Exynos chipset, which may very well be referred to as Exynos 2300. The SoC is reportedly being referred to as “Quadra” behind the scenes. Whereas the specs are unknown proper now, Sammobile has highlighted a few of the enhancements the Exynos 2300 may include.

Whereas the business remains to be adopting the 4nm node course of structure, the Exynos 2300 may use the 3nm GAA fabrication course of. It’s anticipated to come back with the newest ARM Cortex CPU cores and an up to date model of the Xclipse GPU. The improved model of the Xclipse GPU is claimed to be based mostly on the newer model of AMD’s Radeon GPU, which may deliver a lot of enhancements.

Samsung may stick to Snapdragon for now

Regardless that the Exynos 2300 is anticipated to deliver enhancements in virtually all areas, Samsung may launch its future flagship gadgets, Galaxy S23 for instance, with Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets solely. Regardless of bettering the chipset on paper, the Exynos 2200 has didn’t impress the customers. Points corresponding to software program lag, poor battery life, and overheating are nonetheless current.

The ‘GOS’ Galaxy S22 incident may need taught Samsung a lesson

On account of such points, Samsung began to intentionally throttle apps on the Galaxy S22 sequence, following which a lot of Samsung Galaxy S-series fashions have been eliminated from the favored app Geekbench. The entire fiasco led to large implications inside Samsung, a lot so that folks began in charge TM Roh for it.

Nonetheless, it appears that evidently the entire GOS state of affairs may need taught Samsung a lesson, as the corporate is stated to be working on a “actual flagship chipset” for the 2025 Galaxy S-series smartphones. It’s reported that Samsung has assembled a “dream workforce of 1,000 staff” to develop the brand new customized SoC from scratch. Nevertheless, till then, Samsung is claimed to stay with Qualcomm because the flagship chipset supplier.

Up to date Info (November 5, 2022): Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala, through the firm’s This fall earnings name, has additionally hinted that Samsung will rely solely on Snapdragon chips for upcoming premium Galaxy merchandise. He stated that the share of Snapdragon chips used within the Galaxy flagships would go from 75% in G S22 to “international share” in G S23.

CEO Cristiano Amon additionally added that Samsung will rely solely on Snapdragon chips for “future premium Galaxy merchandise.” He confirmed that Qualcomm has entered right into a “multiyear settlement” with Samsung, suggesting that the Korean big’s next-gen flagship gadgets may (completely) depend on Snapdragon chips.

So from a March quarter perspective, you are proper, the profit from the Samsung launch for the brand new telephone can be within the in sort of the second half of the March quarter. So it is available in in direction of the tip of the quarter, however that might be a bonus, whereas our share from 75% in G S22 goes as much as international share in G S23. – Akash Palkhiwala (Qualcomm CFO)

It is a good factor

As a lot as we love the competitors within the chipset area (it lastly led Google to ditch Qualcomm and now we’ve got the highly-optimized Tensor chipset), we nonetheless consider that it is best for Samsung to take a break. The corporate is claimed to be constructing the subsequent chipset from scratch, which might give it time and area to rectify the errors it has made previously few generations. Qualcomm, alternatively, has been bettering its chipsets previously few years and will show to be a wise alternative in the interim.