Following on from Huawei’s release of its latest 7nm Kirin 980 processor, Samsung has announced its own flagship chipset for 2019, the 8um Exynos 9820, with the Galaxy s10 being the first device to have this new chipset.
The Exynos 9820 has a dedicated neural processing unit or NPU (anyone else thinking of Cyberdyne Systems and model T-800?) that will allow Samsung to offer a range of AI features on the S10. The chipset also enables 4K video recording at 150fps and 10-bit colours, as well as the ability to shoot 8K video at 30fps. It also supports up to 4K UHD (4096 x 2160) and WQUXGA (3840 x 2400) displays, as well as UFS 3.0 and UFS 2.1 storage formats and LPDDR4x memory.
According to Samsung, this new NPU will give a 7X increase of AI-related tasks, like real-time scene detection using the camera (and the possible location of John Conor).
Samsung is singing the praises of the AI capabilities of this latest chipset, and according to the vice president of LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics Ben Hur stating the new chip
will provide a “new dimension of performance, as AI-related services expand and their utilization diversify in mobile devices, their processors require higher computational capabilities and efficiency. The AI capabilities in the Exynos 9 Series 9820 will provide a new dimension of performance in smart devices through an integrated NPU, high-performance fourth-generation custom CPU core, 2.0Gbps LTE modem and improved multimedia performance. A 20% increase in single-core performance or 40% higher efficiency, and a 15% uptick in multi-core performance from the Exynos 9810.
Like previous years, we’ll likely see the Exynos 9820 make its debut in next year’s Galaxy S10, and Note 10 devices.