Samsung is working on a 5 nm Exynos 1000 SoC

With the introduction of the Exynos 990 SoC that is supposed to power the upcoming Galaxy S11 lineup, Samsung completely ditched its focus on custom high-performance processor cores. The Mongoose cores in the Exynos 9820 that should have provided the edge over ARM’s Cortex-A76 cores featured in the Snapdragon 855 did not really cut it, so Samsung decided to shut down the custom core development facility in Austin. As always. Samsung will be offering both Exynos 990 and Snapdragon 865 versions for its 2020 flagships, even though the Exynos SoCs will most likely prove a bit slower. But not all is lost, as Samsung is rumored to already be working on a next gen Exynos 1000 SoC that should at least even the playing field.

The rumor comes straight from reputable leaker Ice Universe, who recently reported that Samsung could be using ARM’s Cortex-A78 as high-performance cores for its next gen Exynos 1000 SoC. Qualcomm will most likely use the same cores for whatever comes after the Snapdragon 865, so it all depends on how well each of the companies integrates these cores with other components like the GPU. Speaking of GPUs, Ice Universe reports that Samsung has not yet decided on the exact model to be integrated in the Exynos 1000. Since it is sticking with ARM’s technology, it might opt for the Mali-G78 GPU, but chances are that Samsung will finally include an RDNA mobile GPU designed in collaboration with AMD.

Last, but not least, Ice Universe mentions that the Exynos 1000 should be produced using the 5 nm process. Samsung has its own fabs, but it is a bit behind TSMC with the availability of the 5 nm nodes, so the Exynos 1000 will most likely be released towards the end of 2020.