Samsung and AMD announced in June 2019 that the two would work together to bring mobile GPUs to Samsung Exynos chips, with Samsung System LSI (Exynos division of Samsung Electronics) allowing IP Radeon GPUs from AMD in a multi-channel agreement year. Yesterday, in a presentation for the Exynos 2100, Samsung released an update to the partnership. Samsung LSI President and GM Dr. Inyup Kang, “We’re working with AMD, and our next generation flagship GPU will be a flagship product.”
So AMD ‘s GPU is coming very fast, in the next “flagship product.” There have been various interpretations of the internet of what constitutes a “branded product” in this context. Does that mean the next Samsung flagship smartphone or the next famous Exynos chip? Since Kang works at Samsung LSI, Exynos division, we go on to explain that “product” means the next Exynos chipset, to come out a full year from now. The other explanation is, that a new GPU would arrive sometime this year on Galaxy Note, Fold, or whatever you want to define a “main smartphone” like, it would be pretty out of the ordinary because it would mean killing the new Exynos 2100 less than a year after its launch.
Right now, Samsung isn’t throwing the company’s full weight behind its own SoC division, instead splitting the global circulation between Exynos and Exynos ’largest SoC competitor, Qualcomm. International consumers have yet to see what the new Exynos 2100 looks like, but before that, the Exynos versions of Samsung phones have been so badly designed that Samsung users have started a pleading petition Qualcomm SoCs be sold in their area instead. For the Galaxy S20 by 2020, Samsung pulled the Exynos SoC from its home market in South Korea, opting to replace it with a US-made Qualcomm chip, a move that was reportedly “ embarrassment ”Exynos division.
Along with this AMD deal, there are some indications that Samsung may be putting a heavier focus on its Exynos SoCs. The show’s motto yesterday was “Exynos is back,” apparently revealing that Samsung is acknowledging that things have been bad in the past. And today, Domino’s Pizza style, the department is totally upset about that and turning a new page. Last year, the famous Exynos was the “Exynos 990,” but this year the flagship company has a new model number scheme, “Exynos 2100,” apparently linking it closer to Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S21. AMD-GPU-Packing Exynos is likely to be the Exynos 2200 next year, and will feature in the Galaxy S22.
But will Samsung send Exynos to the rest of the world?
But will this change any Samsung SoC distribution plan? The problem with any Samsung Exynos news is that it is not relevant to about half of Samsung’s user base. The US, China, Japan, Latin America, and (recently) Korea typically get Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, while Europe, India, and the rest of the world get Exynos . Samsung has not yet announced that it wants to switch to Exynos everywhere, which would be a huge boost in Samsung’s product line, manufacturing capabilities, and in the SoC market in general.
At the same time, a GPU is no better than a major attack vector if Samsung wants to go to SoC war with Qualcomm. Qualcomm’s strength lies in its modem technology and connectivity patents, and it has strongly defended its patent to give itself a monopoly over the Android SoC market in places like the US. Both companies are even when it comes to CPU technology; they both use an off-the-shelf ARM design. Today, Samsung uses ARM Mali GPUs off-the-shelf, while Qualcomm has its own graphics division called “Adreno.”
Interestingly, with Samsung’s involvement, AMD’s graphics segment will be a key two of the mobile market’s key GPU implementations. Qualcomm’s Adcomo GPUs are the result of a marriage to ATI’s old mobile GPU division. Qualcomm and ATI were involved in designing Qualcomm’s first Adreno GPUs around 2006, and eventually Qualcomm bought ATI’s “Imageon” mobile group entirely, creating Qualcomm’s internal GPU division. AMD’s graphics division comes from a later purchase of the rest of ATI, bringing us AMD Radeon. Today, you can still see obedience to AMD ‘s GPU division in Qualcomm branding— “Adreno” is an anagram of “Radeon.”