Samsung have announced a new entry-level processor, the Exynos 7 Quad 7570 designed for budget smartphones and IoT devices. The Exynos 7570 is notable for being built using Samsung’s 14nm FinFET manufacturing process, which was first showcased with the Exynos 7420 chipset. This System-on-Chip is the first Exynos unit to come with an integrated Cat.4 LTE 2CA modem plus Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, location services including GNSS and an integrated FM radio. The Exynos 7570 supports screen resolutions of up to WXGA, or 1,280 by 800, which highlights the low-end nature of the chipset. It can, however, record and playback videos at FullHD (1920 x 1080) and includes an image signal processor that supports camera resolutions of up to 8 megapixels for the front, and 13 megapixels for the back.
There are a number of important benefits associated with using the 14nm FinFET process for this chipset and the first is that it reduces the size of the component. Samsung’s press release highlights that the total chipset size has been reduced by up to 20% thanks to the new unit consolidating a number of components: in other words, because more technology is included on the chip, so manufacturers do not need to source and locate other components on the device motherboard. Another important benefit of shrinking the chip is that the smaller the unit, the less voltage that is needed to drive the unit. This has a significant difference on both the heat production of the chipset and the power consumption, as these are proportional to the square of the voltage used to drive the chipset. Samsung state that the chip’s four ARM Cortex-A53 application cores are up to 70% faster and 30% more power efficient compared with the chip’s immediate predecessor.
Whilst the Exynos 7570 is not an exciting product for the majority of our readers, as it is not a high-end chipset by any stretch, it shows that Samsung are serious about introducing their newer chip building technologies into less powerful System-on-Chips. Samsung’s considerable investment into its semiconductor factories and into reducing the chipset sizes should allow it to roll out competitive products for low-end devices, where MediaTek and Qualcomm compete with their low-end chipsets that are constructed on a less efficient process. Samsung are likely to use the new Exynos chipset in their up and coming budget devices and it is likely to support both the Android and Tizen platforms. It is unclear if the company will license and sell the Exynos 7570 to other manufacturers. The Exynos 7570 could also have a home in some of Samsung’s home automation technologies and wearable devices, but we’ll see.