Samsung Heats Up The Competition With Two New Leaked Exynos 7 Chips

(Image credit: PhoneArena)

With Samsung reducing its reliance on Qualcomm's chips and trying to differentiate from all the other mobile OEMs who seem to default to the same chips, the company has been focusing more on its in-house processors, such as the upcoming 64-bit Exynos 7420 that's supposed to arrive in the Galaxy S6.

According to a job description on Linkedin, Samsung is also working on a couple of other chips from the Exynos 7-series. The two chips will be called the Exynos 7890, which is presented as a 14nm chip, and the Exynos 7650, which is also a 64-bit ARMv8 chip, but it's not clear whether it will also be built on the 14nm processor.

The Exynos 7650 could be a mid-range or even a low-end 20nm chip that Samsung intends to use for its own lower-end devices. This could prove that Samsung is getting more and more interested in supplying its whole smartphone division with its own chips and not just the high-end devices.

Samsung has mainly used its in-house chips for high-end devices so far. The company has used some of its chips in mid-range devices, but usually those were chips Samsung used a year or two before in high-end devices. For instance, the Exynos 4 chip used in the Galaxy S3 was later used in some of Samsung's mid-range devices.

Samsung is still the world leader in smartphone sales, and the proliferation of its own chips in its devices could mean revenue hits for Qualcomm, as well as others that are currently supplying chips to Samsung. Although there isn't a high chance that Samsung will start selling its Exynos chips to other companies until it can properly supply its own mobile division, the company could decide to do so in the future to become an actual competitor to Qualcomm and Mediatek, or even Intel, if it ever decides to buy AMD.

The Exynos 7890 and Exynos 7650 chips don't have an arrival date, but it's likely we'll see both in devices this year. There's a high probability that the 14nm Exynos 7890 could land in the Galaxy Note 5 later this year.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
  • tntom
    While I always preferred the Qualcomm powered Samsung devices for the community ROM support, it would be nice to have all models of the GS6 have the same CPU to make it easier to maintain custom ROMS. Just wish Samsung was better about releasing drivers and source to the community.
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    Samsung would buy NV before AMD. Why buy the loser in all tech when you can buy the gpu leader who could perhaps put you as the top soc leader with your cat10 modems and fabs? Not to mention you then are the desktop discrete leader, solves your lawsuit, workstation leader etc, no need for apple if you're pumping out fat 500-600mm^2 discrete gpus either. No reason to buy AMD, every reason to buy NV. Not sure they'd even get x86 lic if they purchase AMD which would REALLY make the whole thing pointless (if not transferable, who knows what is in Intel/AMD agreements). Why would you ever buy the one getting squashed on all fronts (cpu, gpu, socs if you can call AMD's stuff socs yet)?

    NV is the company to buy for all now, AMD is not. I'm talking Samsung, Google, Intel, Apple or maybe Amazon here (probably not AMZN). Best fit at samsung/intel as both have fabs/modems and Intel is losing 4B in mobile a year. That ends with 14/10nm NV socs pumped out of Intel fabs. But probably FAR too much ego and anger between them to get it done unfortunately and that sucks. I'd rather see American's win than Koreans here (I'm sure Korean's say the exact opposite...LOL).
    Reply