Published in Mobiles

Samsung almost ready with 3nm smartphone chip

by on09 May 2024


The watch comes first

Two years after Samsung launched mass production with its 3nm technology, they're finally gearing up to release 3nm Exynos chips for Android phones.

Samsung has been working with its mates at Synopsys and just announced that its high-performance mobile SoC design is all wrapped up, thanks to its Gate-All-Around (GAA) tech and ditching the old FinFET for GAA for its 3nm chips.

Samsung Foundry got the ball rolling on 3nm production in mid-2022, just nipping ahead of TSMC. But while TSMC's been churning out 3nm chips for Apple's latest iPhones, Samsung's been holding back on using its 3nm magic for their high-performance mobile SoCs.

Word on the street is that Samsung's first 3nm mobile SoC will tick away inside the Galaxy Watch 7 series. However, that is just the first thing that will see it used. A few months later, it plans to drop the Exynos 2500 into the Galaxy S25 series.

Samsung's 3nm GAA process is all set to crank out some seriously beefy mobile chipsets. It is on the final stretch, with the chip design ready to hit the production line.

Samsung's first 3nm smartphone chipset will be packed with Synopsys IP and top-notch CPUs and GPUs.

Samsung's SLSI VP Kijoon Hong said the company’s partnership with Synopsys has been smashing it with SoC designs. This is a massive win for us, hitting peak performance and efficiency with the most advanced mobile CPU cores and SoC designs."

The CPUs will likely be ARM's standard Cortex gear since Samsung stopped cooking up its CPU cores. But it's still in the game with custom GPUs. It's teamed up with AMD to bring RDNA graphics to mobile SoCs with its Xclipse GPU lineup. Initially, these were just for the fancy Exynos processors, but now you'll find them in mid-range chips, too, like the Galaxy A55's Exynos 1480.

Rumour has it that Samsung's gonna unveil the Galaxy Watch 7 series at their next Galaxy Unpacked bash in July. If the gossip's on the money, we could see their first 3nm mobile processor in just a few months. But we'll have to hang tight a bit longer for the first 3nm smartphone chipset. The upcoming Unpacked will also show Samsung's latest foldables – the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Plus, we might see some new Galaxy tablets, TWS earbuds, and Galaxy Ring hitting the shelves in July.

 

Last modified on 10 May 2024
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