Samsung is all set to launch its first 5nm mobile chipset next week. The South Korean technology major will unveil the Exynos 1080 at an event in Shanghai, China on November 12, the company confirmed on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.
The Exynos 1080 is a high-end chipset that should succeed the Exynos 980 in Samsung’s mid-range offering. However, featuring ARM’s latest Cortex-A78 CPU cores along with the Mali-G78 GPU and an integrated 5G modem, this chipset may bring significant performance improvement to the table.
ARM claims the Cortex-A78 to offer a 20 percent performance increase over the Cortex-A77 CPU cores. And an early benchmark of the Exynos 1080 did promise a flagship-level performance. With an AnTuTu score of 693,600 points, the chipset outscored both the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865+.
Both of Qualcomm’s latest flagships as well as the Exynos 980 pack Cortex-A77 high-performance CPU cores. However, while the former two are based on 7nm architecture, the latter is based on an 8nm FinFET process. So there should be a much bigger performance gap between Exynos 980 and Exynos 1080.
Samsung has been under pressure to improve its Exynos chipset offerings and the company finally seems to have hit the right chord. It recently stopped using custom Mongoose CPU cores in favor of stock ARM cores and that shift is seemingly delivering the desired results.
Interestingly, there have also been reports of an Exynos 981 which was spotted on the Bluetooth SIG last week. It’s unclear where this chipset would fit in Samsung’s mid-range offering. If the Exynos 1080 succeeds the Exynos 980 in the upper mid-range category, then the Exynos 981 should be for the lower end of that segment.
Exynos 1080 to arrive on November 12 as Samsung’s first 5nm mobile chipset
Samsung had announced the Exynos 1080 last month. However, most of the technical details were kept under the wraps back then. Hopefully, we’ll finally know them all next week. It also remains to be seen if the company will release a list of devices that’ll use the new Exynos chipset.
Reports in China suggest the Vivo X60 could be the first handset to get it. The Exynos 1080 should also power the next generation of Samsung’s upper-mid-range 5G handsets. Those may include the Galaxy A52 5G and the Galaxy A72 5G.
Apart from the Exynos 1080, Samsung also has a flagship Exynos chipset in the works – the Exynos 2100. This chipset should power the Galaxy S21 series phones launching in January next year.
Samsung also last year signed a multi-year partnership with AMD last year. The company is now working on its first Exynos chipset with AMD Radeon graphics. Interesting times ahead for Samsung’s Exynos chipset lineup.