There is a saying that goes, "If you want something done right, you have got to do it yourself" or similar variations. Even the Mad Titan Thanos subscribed to such an idea when it came to gathering all of the Infinity Stones for himself, seeing how his underlings fail time and again to carry out his orders. The world of consumer electronics is not too far off from the truth: companies would prefer to manufacture their own hardware in order to lower production costs while offering a high degree of efficiency for users. Where smartphone chipsets are concerned, Samsung has its Exynos family. Currently the Exynos 9825 sees action in the high end Galaxy Note 10, but Samsung is already preparing to usher in ever faster processing speeds with its next generation chipset, the Samsung Exynos 990.
With the next flagship smartphone chip, the Samsung Exynos 990 is said to be 20% faster than its predecessor. Such performance numbers ought to be taken with a pinch of salt, however, as there are many variables in which a benchmark test is run which will ultimately influence the final figure. We will just have to take Samsung's word for it at the moment, and a 20% increase in speed is not something to gloss over.
The Samsung Exynos 990 chip will most probably see action in next year's flagship handset, with the Galaxy S11 being in the works already. The 20% boost in speed will concern faster execution of ordinary processing tasks, not to mention being 20% faster when it comes to handling graphics while doubling the tuned speed for the chip's AI (Artificial Intelligence) acceleration circuitry. With AI playing an ever increasing role in everyday life, the smartphone too, would benefit in this aspect as what was once limited to as a communications device has grown in stature and functionality that most of us would be lost without our smartphones.
All of that additional processing firepower might guzzle up more battery power at a faster rate, but according to Jeff Arnold who is a chip executive for Samsung's chip design group claimed that the Exynos 990 will offer a better performance return while consuming less power. Unveiled at the Samsung Tech Day recently, the Exynos 990 certainly sounds impressive enough.
As one of the top Android smartphone manufacturers in the market, Samsung continues to break new ground with such developments. It is important for Samsung to maintain their edge (some of their handsets do make use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset in select countries, while other markets will make use of the Exynos processor) constantly so that they will be able to retain their customers.
Chip design is not easy at all, and there are certain quarters who wonder whether Samsung has the expertise and capability to sustain its own CPU core designs. It is not a fight that Samsung would want to lose, and in this race for chip supremacy has very little room or margin for error. However, I suspect that those who have picked up a Galaxy S10 or Galaxy Note 10 this year would most probably skip the Galaxy S11 and Note 11 in 2020 and wait for what 2021 offers instead.
