Stephen Woo, president of Samsung’s System LSI division presented us with a new processor for mobile devices called Exynos 5 Octa at the recently held expo SIGGRAPH 2013. Exynos 5 Octa is Samsung’s new 8-core processor with 6-core mobile graphics which offers “a level of pure processing power never before seen in mobile devices”. The new processor is two times faster in 3D graphics than its predecessor and is ideal for smartphones, and even more so for tablets.
The new Exynos 5 Octa chipset has an eight-core configuration, but it consists of two sets, each with four cores. This improves the data processing capabilities by 20% when compared to its predecessor and because the cores are produced on 28 nm architecture it also has an optimized design for higher energy efficiency and offers a longer battery life.
This processor will be capable of “heavy duty multi-tasking”, simultaneous execution of the most demanding tasks. For example, on the devices containing the new processing unit you’ll be able to look for a good restaurant online while downloading an application and receiving information from GPS and location services, and all of that will be available without any delays, lags or stopping.
Samsung Exynos 5 Octa
The latest member of the Exynos product line is capable of performing general computing operations on the graphics processors (GPU) accelerating the processing of demanding algorithms and operations which are traditionally handled by the processor (CPU). Exynos 5 Octa can easily manage streaming HD movies without dropping frames with superb picture clarity and it has a large number of hardware decoders for full HD 60 fps video and 1080p video recording and playback. It also has the width of memory transfer of 14.9 GB per second along with two channel LPDDR3 of 933 MHz, which allows for the biggest speed of data processing in the industry and supports a full HD Wi-Fi screen.
As Samsung claims on its official website, the New Exynos 5 Octa is the world’s best mobile processor to implement the new era of graphics performance in Mobile. Exynos 5 Octa processor seamlessly combines the ultimate processing power with the energy efficiency by four Cortex-A15 cores and four Cortex-A7 cores. New series of Exynos 5 Octa’s advanced GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) enables 2.3 times faster 3D graphics processing capabilities over the previous Exynos 5 Octa. By supporting OpenGL ES 3.0 and Full profile Open CL 1.1, new Exynos 5 Octa enables the horsepower needed in multi-layer rendering of high-end, complex gaming scenarios, post-processing and sharing of photos and video, as well as general high-function multi-tasking operations.
When processing pictures or multimedia from memory to display panel, the Mobile Image Compression (MIC) function inside the newest Exynos 5 Octa family successfully lowers the total system power. Through this feature, you would experience the maximized usage hours of mobile devices with a high-resolution display such as WQXGA (2500×1600), in particular when browsing the web or doing multimedia application requiring the frequent screen refresh.
The specifications of the two versions of Samsung Exynos processor are listed below:
- Exynos 5420 processor
| CPU | ARM Cortex™-A15 Quad 1.8GHz + Cortex™-A7 Quad 1.3GHz |
| 3D HW | Mali™-T628 MP6 |
| Memory | 2 LPDDR3e (14.9GB/s memory bandwidth) |
| Display | WQXGA (2560 x 1600) with MIC |
- Exynos 5410 processor
| CPU | ARM Cortex™-A15 Quad 1.6GHz + Cortex™-A7 Quad 1.2GHz |
| 3D HW | SGX544 MP3 |
| Memory | 2 LPDDR3 (12.8GB/s memory bandwidth) |
| Display | WQXGA (2560 x 1600) |
For now, we can still not know when the first smartphones and tablets with this processor are going to appear on the market. But be sure that we will bring you the news as soon as they hit the light of day.