Samsung has been developing their own line of Application Processors for a long time now in the Exynos line, but they’ve struggled to stay relevant in the face of Qualcomm’s never ending march to the top with their Snapdragon line. In devices where two models are common – one with an Exynos CPU and one with a Snapdragon CPU – people seem to prefer the Snapdragon-powered version. Now though, it looks like things are set to change and 2015 is to be the year that Samsung’s line of Exynos processors really take off. The Galaxy S6 is to forego a Snapdragon processor and instead use an Exynos 7420, but Samsung isn’t to stop there though.
A LinkedIn listing passed to our friends at PhoneArena suggests that Samsung has bigger plans for their Exynos 7 lineup of processors. A job listing for a “Silicon Validation Engineer” at Samsung’s France research facility specifically mentions the Exynos 7650 and Exynos 7890, both two new processors we’ve yet to hear anything about. Interesting enough, the two chips are described as the first “64 bits”, but that crown goes to the 7420 pegged for release in the Galaxy S6. The job listing details a period of over a year working at the facility in France and from the sounds of it, these chips are already ready to go, just waiting for a home to be released into the wild. That home is likely to be upcoming Samsung tablets, or possibly this Fall’s Galaxy Note device. Either way, it looks like Samsung is ready to take their Exynos line to the next level.
Samsung has crept up on the competition somewhat this past year, thanks to their ability to reliably manufacture chips using a 14nm process. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 is built using a 20nm process, which is perhaps the reason for all the reports of overheating we’ve been hearing. No matter what though, this is a year of brand new processors, and this latest generation of new ARM core designs and octa-core CPUs from all big players means we’re in store for some great device launches later this year.
