Samsung Electronics Co. said on Thursday it would
mass-produce its faster quad-core mobile microprocessor
to power the third generation of its flagship Galaxy S
smartphone, due to be unveiled next week.
The new quad-core application processor is built on the
32nm High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) low-power process
technology. The Exynos 4 Quad runs on 1.4GHz and is
based on the ARM CORTEX A9 quad-core, enabling double
the processing power at a 20 percent lower power bill
over its predecessor, the 45nm process-based Exynos 4
Dual. To further improve power efficiency, Samsung also
adopted hot-plug functionality to support on-off
switching for each core as well as the per-core dynamic
voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), which offers a
significant reduction in power consumption by adapting
different levels of voltage and frequency when changing
workloads.
"The quad-core processor offers phenomenal multitasking
abilities surpassing any single or dual application
processor. Since all the cores must share a single
battery, the power management and efficiency in the
limited battery capacity are indispensable for mobile
computing devices," said Taehoon Kim, vice president of
System LSI marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung
Electronics. "Given the diverse functionalities
consumers are demanding from their mobile devices today,
the Exynos 4 Quad meets those high-performance needs
while keeping power consumption very low."
Benefitting from a use case where the parallel
processing and workload sharing among the four cores is
necessary, the Exynos 4 Quad is particular suited for
heavy-load applications such as 3D games, video editing,
and calculation-intensive simulation.
The new chip is also having identical form factor
measurements (12mm X 12mm X 1.37 mm) and is pin-to-pin
compatible with the 32nm process based Exynos 4 Dual,
allowing mobile device designers to adopt the new
solution without additional cost, engineering or design
efforts.
In addition, the new processor incorporates a full HD 30
frame per second video hardware codec engine for high
resolution 1080p video recording and play-back, an
embedded image signal processor interface for
high-quality camera functionality and an HDMI 1.4
interface.
Samsung also developed a power management IC (PMIC), the
S5M8767, as a companion chip to power the Exynos 4 Quad
processor. By integrating various circuitry such as nine
programmable buck converters and 28 low-dropout
regulators (LDOs) into the small package of 5.0 mm x
5.0mm x 0.4mm, the S5M8767 is designed to scale up or
down the dynamic voltage depending on the clock speed in
6.25mV step for managing power delivery and maximizing
battery life at the system level.
Already in production, the Exynos 4 Quad is scheduled to
be adopted first into Samsung's next Galaxy smartphone
that will officially be announced next week in London,
banking on a heavy marketing campaign heading into the
summer Olympics in the city.
Samsung said it is sampling the chips to major handset
makers.
The firm is the world's top manufacturer of mobile
application processors (AP), enjoying booming sales of
Apple's iPhone and iPad as well as its own Galaxy line
of smartphones and tablets.