Samsung Exynos 5250 Begins Sampling – Mass Production in Q2 2012
by Saumitra Bhagwat on January 27, 2012 9:32 AM EST- Posted in
- Samsung
- Cortex A15
- Exynos
- PowerVR
- SoCs
Back in November, Samsung announced its next generation Exynos 5250 SoC based on ARM’s Cortex-A15 architecture. Samsung confirmed today during its earnings call that the Exynos 5250 has begun sampling and should hit mass production in Q2 2012
Just to recap, the Exynos 5250 is a 32nm dual-core Cortex-A15 SoC running at 2.0 Ghz. Memory bandwidth is a staggering 12.8 GB/s and allows it to drive up to WQXGA (2560x1600) resolution displays. As we reported back in November, compute performance should easily be twice that of the 1.5Ghz dual-core Cortex-A9-based Exynos 4210 and graphics performance is expected to be a four-fold improvement.
However, not much is known about the GPU at this moment; but if the Exynos 4210 was anything to go by, we could see ARM's Mali T-604 based on their new Midgard architecture handling the pixel pushing duties. The Exynos 4210 packed a Mali-400 MP4 GPU, while its predescessor, Hummingbird, used a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Samsung does have licenses to other GPU designs from ARM and Imagination Technologies, so at this point, the GPU in the Exynos 5250 could be anybody's guess.
The next generation SoC race is definitely heating up with silicon from major players such as Qualcomm (Snapdragon S4 "Krait") and Texas Instruments (OMAP 5) all expected to ramp up production soon, with devices expected in Q3/Q4 2012. Of course, what Apple could be doing with its A6 chip is entirely another story.
Source: GSMArena
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Mike1111 - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Sound good! 2GHz dual-core Cortex-A15 makes more sense to me this year than quad-core Cortex-A9 (next year: quad-core big.LITTLE). Wouldn't surprise me if Apple's A6 (3rd gen iPad in late March/April) uses the same CPU, memory bandwidth and 32nm process.Saumitra - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Yep, I guess we'll see a higher adoption of quad-core A15 designs at 28nm. The power-draw with quad-core chips at 32nm could make them unfeasible for smartphones. Tablets should be okay though. ;)SilentSin - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Any more info get leaked about the 4212 or will we need to wait for MWC? That's the chip that really interests me since it will likely be the first 32nm SoC in production devices and the LTE battery life might actually be decent instead of resorting to 2000mAh+ monsters. I'm hopeful those are ready for the first half of this year since they should be pin compatible with the 4210.twimberly - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
I saw 4212 at CES. Samsung was showing off a 40% power reduction for the CPU and GPU. You can read my report over at androidandme.mckirkus - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
You dropped the ball on your colloquialism.Ryard - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Yeah, I was just about to post on that.Dropped the ball = didn't fulfill your responsibility
douglaswilliams - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
I too was going to comment on that.Perhaps English is not Saumitra Bhagwat's first language? I don't remember reading any other articles by him. And AnandTech doesn't profile their writers! They should.
Anyway, it seems like it has been a while since a microprocessor architecture article has come out and I enjoyed this one, so keep them coming Saumitra!
Saumitra - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
My god, I apologize for this blunder, maybe my colloquilism has failed me. Having said that, let us not detract ourselves from the focal point of this article. :)zoominyogi - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Dude,this website is for techies ..no need for analyzing each and every word.I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this website is not www.shakespeare.com ... so if you're so anal about English, you'd be better off wasting your time somewhere else.Kristian Vättö - Sunday, January 29, 2012 - link
We are working on our "About Us" page, which will include a small bio of every writer. It was supposed to go live at CES but we've been experiencing some server issues so Anand has been busy solving them :-)