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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ImSpartacus - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
A Samsung ARM Win8 tablet would be pretty sweet!B3an - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
It definitely would! But the problem is it's not x86, and only the Metro UI and apps work on ARM Win 8 tablets. Atleast Intel now have that new Atom SoC that finally competes with current ARM designs on battery life, but all ARM A15 designs (like the Exynos 5250) i'm sure will be considerably faster, as the new Atom is only only a little faster than current ARM designs.jjj - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
I wouldn't bet on TI having A15 this year,maybe Q1 next year.As for Samsung they announced that they are sampling the 5250 in november 2011,they also got the Exynos 4212 A9 dual core 1.5Ghz on 32nm sampling in Q4 and they seem undecided on a Galaxy 3 launch so one has to wonder how soon they'll actually have devices with A15.
PS: you imply ,most likely unintentionally, that Krait will arrive only in Q3-Q4,it should arrive sooner.
Saumitra - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
I understand their press release in November '11 says the Exynos 5250 would enter mass production in Q2 2012, but this was confirmed on the their Q1 2012 earnings call this morning; so we have it straight from the horse's mouth. :)As for Krait, I meant actual devices. I'm very doubtful that we will see any shipping devices based on Krait or Cortex-A15 in Q2.
jjj - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
As far as i know Qualcomm said early this year and never mentioned any delays as of yet . There is also the fact that HTC has to be rather desperate to get some good models out ASAP given their current sales and expectations for Q1 and since they are rather close to Qualcomm it would be surprising to see them wait so long.I also doubt that Qualcomm is all that eager to compete with A15 so they should be doing all they can to get devices in stores fast.The initial press rls for the Exynos 5250 is here (you guys reported on it too) and i guess today's news is just a confirmation that all is on track. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconduct...
dagamer34 - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
The fact that HTC already has some rumored Tegra 3 designs tells me that they don't want a repeat of last year where because they waited on Qualcomm for their S3 chips, they lost out on a good chunk of sales in Q1 and parts of Q2.Mike1111 - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
I think there's at least a small chance that Apple could ship a device based on Cortex-A15 in Q2. But Apple is probably the only one who could do it, at least when it comes to high-volume retail availability (i.e. not just in one store in one city in one country...).Tomkim - Saturday, January 28, 2012 - link
Is there any problem with A15 processor in TI? In fact, TI is the 1st licenser of A15 from ARM and someone probable already had the samples of OMAP5.Kristian Vättö - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Great comeback Saumitra, haven't seen any posts from you for awhile! Keep 'em coming ;-)Saumitra - Friday, January 27, 2012 - link
Heya Kristian! Yeh, I've been MIA for a while now; gotta get back into the game! :)