Samsung unveils next

Samsung Electronics unveiled its next-generation flagship mobile processor, the Exynos 2400, equipped with the latest graphics and generative artificial intelligence technology during its inaugural Samsung System LSI Tech Day 2023 event at its Device Solutions America office in San Jose, California, on Thursday.

The Exynos 2400 processor uses the Xclipse 940 graphics processing unit, under the California-based semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices’ latest chip architecture codenamed RDNA 3.

The Korean tech giant said that the new mobile chip features a data processing speed about 1.7 times faster and AI performance that is 14.7 times better than those of its predecessor, the Exynos 2200, launched in January 2022.

The company looks to provide a more realistic and immersive experience for gaming through a range of optical effects, including global illumination, reflection and shadow rendering with the processor’s substantially enhanced ray tracing capability.

Additionally, Samsung introduced a new AI tool designed for upcoming smartphones, demonstrating text-to-image AI generation using its Exynos 2400 reference board.

Industry sources believe that the tech giant will likely equip the Exynos 2400 chipset to power some of its flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone models, which are set to be released in the first half of next year.

However, Samsung has yet to confirm the matter, saying the detailed chipset strategy will be available “only when the Galaxy S24 series launch is imminent.”

The smartphone maker used to adopt a two-track strategy for its Galaxy S series, deploying both its in-house and US tech giant Qualcomm-designed chipsets to gain an upper hand in price negotiations.

But as the Exynos 2200 processors featured in the Galaxy S22 smartphone series faced an overheating issue in 2022, the in-house chipset was immediately discontinued. The next Galaxy S23 lineup was entirely powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen chipset manufactured by TSMC's 4-nanometer technology.

Sources also predicted that the latest mobile processor will be manufactured through the 4-nanometer process at Samsung’s foundry.

At Thursday’s event, the tech giant also introduced Zoom Anyplace technology based on its 200-million-pixel image sensor, which will allow mobile users to take close-ups of moving objects multiplied up to four times without any image degradation, by applying an AI technology that can automatically track objects while close-ups.

Attended by approximately 300 customers and partners at this year’s System LSI event, Samsung highlighted its vision to lead hyper-intelligent, hyper-connected and hyper-data technologies in the era known as the "fourth industrial revolution," with its comprehensive logic solutions uniquely tailored for various industries.

“Generative AI has quickly emerged as perhaps the most significant trend of the year, demanding more powerful foundational technologies to process data and bring AI to life,” Park Yong-in, president and head of System LSI business at Samsung Electronics, said in his keynote speech.

“We are paving the path toward a new era of proactive AI, leveraging our Samsung System LSI Humanoid platform, which seamlessly converges our capabilities across a broad spectrum of logic semiconductors, from powerful computational IPs and connectivity solutions to sensors emulating the main five human senses.”