Avengers Assemble: AMD and Samsung unite to bring Radeon graphics to Exynos chipsets
We did not see this coming. AMD is re-entering the mobile GPU market having been away since January 2009 when it sold its Imageon division to Qualcomm. Imageon went on to become Adreno, which Qualcomm uses in its Snapdragon SoCs. Now, AMD and Samsung have announced a licensing agreement to supply the South Korean company with "ultra low power, high performance graphics technologies".
In a press release, Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president & CEO, confirmed that "this strategic partnership will extend the reach of our high-performance Radeon graphics into the mobile market". The statement also listed the following as the primary function of the partnership:
AMD will license custom graphics IP based on the recently announced, highly-scalable RDNA graphics architecture to Samsung for use in mobile devices, including smartphones, and other products that complement AMD product offerings.
In other words, and as we understand it today, AMD and Samsung are working together to build new GPUs for Exynos chipsets. While there has been no official confirmation yet, this partnership looks set to end the one between ARM and Samsung for the supply of Mali GPUs that has been operational since 2014. We expect ARM to continue to supply the South Korean company with CPU cores for its Exynos chipsets though.
Source(s)
AMD and Samsung Electronics today announced a multi-year strategic partnership in ultra low power, high performance mobile graphics IP based on AMD Radeon graphics technologies. As part of the partnership, Samsung will license AMD graphics IP and will focus on advanced graphics technologies and solutions that are critical for enhancing innovation across mobile applications, including smartphones.
“As we prepare for disruptive changes in technology and discover new opportunities, our partnership with AMD will allow us to bring groundbreaking graphics products and solutions to market for tomorrow’s mobile applications,” said Inyup Kang, president of Samsung Electronics’ S.LSI Business. “We look forward to working with AMD to accelerate innovations in mobile graphics technologies that will help take future mobile computing to the next level.”
“Adoption of our Radeon graphics technologies across the PC, game console, cloud and HPC markets has grown significantly and we are thrilled to now partner with industry leader Samsung to accelerate graphics innovation in the mobile market,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. “This strategic partnership will extend the reach of our high-performance Radeon graphics into the mobile market, significantly expanding the Radeon user base and development ecosystem.”
Key terms of the partnership include:
- AMD will license custom graphics IP based on the recently announced, highly-scalable RDNA graphics architecture to Samsung for use in mobile devices, including smartphones, and other products that complement AMD product offerings.
- Samsung will pay AMD technology license fees and royalties.
