Samsung and AMD prolong Exynos GPU partnership, hope to search out prospects

Samsung Electronics and AMD are extending their smartphone chip settlement. In a press launch at present, the 2 corporations mentioned they “signed a multi-year settlement extension to deliver a number of generations of high-performance, ultra-low-power AMD Radeon graphics options to an expanded portfolio of Samsung Exynos SoCs.” Even Samsung is reluctant to make use of Samsung chips lately, so it is not clear what gadgets these AMD GPUs will land in.

Samsung’s chip division and AMD have already completed a era of an Exynos SoC with an AMD GPU. That chip was the Exynos 2200, with its “Samsung Xclipse 920 GPU” that was co-developed by AMD. Samsung’s telephone division—which does not essentially have a bias towards the chip division’s merchandise—shipped that chip within the S22 in some areas like Europe, whereas transport the S22 with Qualcomm chips in different areas, just like the US and China. Exynos chips have a nasty repute for continuously having decrease efficiency in comparison with Qualcomm chips, and the Exynos 2200 was no exception. The chip did not do properly towards the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in benchmarks and energy utilization, and Samsung followers as soon as once more needed to cope with getting “inferior telephones” relying on what nation they lived in.

The one win the Xclipse GPU had over Qualcomm was in ray tracing. In at present’s four-paragraph press launch, Samsung and AMD level out twice that “Xclipse was the business’s first cellular GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing.” Samsung’s 2022 chip is higher at ray tracing than Qualcomm’s 2023 chip! The issue is, being an early adopter of ray tracing is not actually related for cellular gaming. Cell video games are constructed for a causal viewers and goal mass-market {hardware}. With the necessity to additionally stability battery life, that market would not worth excessive graphics constancy. As you’ll be able to see with Lenovo killing off its gaming smartphone line, the makes an attempt to deliver hardcore gaming values to smartphones haven’t discovered an enormous viewers.

Samsung’s chip division manufacturers these Exynos chips according to the telephones from Samsung’s telephone division, however the two teams do not see eye to eye on the chip’s market viability. Whereas solely a portion of the Galaxy S22s shipped with Exynos 2200 chips, the Galaxy S23 skipped the Exynos 2300 solely and went all Qualcomm, in each area. The Exynos 2300 is rumored to nonetheless exist and would possibly debut in some particular “Fan editions” of Samsung’s merchandise, which at all times really feel like they’re constructed out of spare elements. Exynos and AMD are each clinging to smartphone relevance, and it is not clear if this partnership may have any prospects.

The road about bringing Radeon graphics to “an expanded portfolio of Samsung Exynos SoCs” would possibly get the 2 corporations some design wins. Samsung’s telephone division nonetheless ships Exynos chips on mid- and low-end gadgets, so perhaps that is the place we’ll begin to see Radeon tech hit the market. It would not make a ton of sense to deliver high-end desktop options to mid-range mobiles, however the two corporations are most likely determined for any form of market share.