Samsung beats Qualcomm to the punch with the 5G-integrated mid-range Exynos 980 SoC
Hot on the heels of its first non-flagship 5G smartphone, Samsung is today taking the wraps off the company’s first 5G-integrated mobile processor. Interestingly, the Exynos 980 is not a new ultra-high-end SoC following in the footsteps of the Exynos 9825 powering the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ outside the US, instead planning to “bring 5G connectivity to more mobile devices.”
Built on 8-nanometer FinFET technology, the newly unveiled SoC pairs an octa-core CPU composed of two high-performance Cortex-A77 cores and six energy-efficient Cortex-A55 cores with a top-of-the-line Mali-G76 GPU to try to achieve the perfect balance between power and affordability. An enhanced neural processing unit (NPU) is also integrated to enable “more sophisticated on-device AI experiences”, while the built-in 5G modem supports up to 2.55Gbps speeds in the sub-6GHz spectrum, as well as blazing fast 4G LTE gigabit downlink capabilities. In other words, you’ll probably be more than satisfied with the speeds delivered by Exynos 980-powered handsets on both 5G and 4G networks.
Samsung’s surprising new chipset is also designed to work with up to 108MP cameras, WQHD+ (3360 x 1440 pix res) screens, and on phones capable of shooting 4K UHD video at 120 frames per second. The mid-range future sounds pretty exciting, eh?