Samsung previewed a flagship mobile GPU processor and other analog and logic chips at its inaugural System LSI Tech Day attended by customers and partners in San Jose, Calif.
The event comes after a difficult period for the company when SemiAnalysis chief analyst Dylan Patel had declared in 2022 that Samsung’s “technical advantages are falling apart” partly due to a “culture problem that has shaken it to its core.”
However, on Thursday when Samsung’s Tech Day started, Patel declared the chipmaker is better off this year than in 2022. “They are recovering now,” he said in comments to Fierce Electronics.
The mobile processor, the Exynos 2400 with Xclipse 940 GPU based on AMD RDNA 3 architecture, was demonstrated at the event for its enhanced ray tracing and realism in gaming. It features a 1.7x increase in CPU performance and nearly a 15x boost in AI performance over the prior Exynos 2200 processor.
Samsung also demonstrated a new AI tool for future smartphones that will offer text-to-image AI generation using the Exynos 2400 reference board. Like Intel and other companies, Samsung is focusing on AI at the edge, where computations are conducted without total reliance on access to a cloud server for AI processing.
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“Samsung is massively pushing the [mobile Exynos 2400 ] with AMD GPU and their internal NPU AI processor,” Patel said. “That’s more in line with what Apple and Google doing with their in-house chips as well, rather than focusing on CPUs.”
Samsung’s upgrades to its Exynos chip line will make it more competitive at the high end of the market with Qualcomm, said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates. “Qualcomm is still way ahead when it comes to high end processors with even some Samsung phones using them in their smartphones” in the US.
The GPU use of AMD’s licensed technology in the mobile chip is especially noteworthy because “graphics processing has been a sore spot at Samsung,” Gold added. “They are pushing hard on the market for automated systems and intelligent appliances, which is growing for industrial and consumer devices.”
Samsung also unveiled its Zoom Anyplace technology based on its 200-million pixel image sensor, allowing smartphone users to take up to 4x close-ups of moving objects without any image degradation. The concept is based on AI tracking technology to automatically follow and capture objects while recordings are made simultaneously to make sure no moment is left uncaptured.
Samsung also debuted its new vision sensor brand, the ISOCELL Vizion and a smart health processor. An NB-IoT non-terrestrial networks-ready next-gen 5G modem was also announced.
The company displayed an automotive processor due for mass production in 2025 called the Exynos Auto V920 as it ran on multiple displays. A video of the ISOCELL Auto 1H1 image sensor was show with a 120Hz high dynamic range and superior LED flicker mitigation for safer driving. Image processing is also a major concern for autonomy tech and industrial processes, Gold noted.
“Samsung’s automotive push seems interesting because today all Korean automakers still don’t use that many of their chips,” Patel added. “Samsung will likely be able to convince them to start using.” Despite all the positives at the event, he said Samsung’s process node development is “still weak.”
Samsung also showed a video of NB-IoT NTN satellite communication with Skylo Technologies, an NTN service provider. And, a live demo of wireless lighting control through UWB was shown with the Exynos Connect U100.