Last we heard, Samsung was working on new mobile chipsets that would use a 20nm manufacturing process, in order to offer better performance and efficiency than is possible with current 28nm chips. Now, a report from DDaily claims that Samsung might be skipping straight ahead to a 14nm process from 28nm. From what we can glean from the poorly translated Korean, Samsung is apparently doing this to make a “comeback” in the foundry business, in the face of competition from TSMC, which is currently working on 20nm chips as well.
This 14nm chip will also have 64-bit support, and will feature ARM’s big.LITTLE octa-core configuration with Cortex-A53/A57 cores that can be operational simultaneously, with almost halved power consumption compared to the Exynos 5420 chip. Production on sample units is expected to be finished by the end of this year, and the Galaxy S5 will reportedly be the handset that debuts the new chip, which will be part of what is tentatively named the Exynos 6 series.
However, a recent report suggested that the Galaxy S5 might be announced in January, with a launch just a month later, and if this report holds true, then the Galaxy S5 just might miss out on the newer Exynos 6 chipset. As always, all of this is early speculation, so don’t anything too seriously just yet.
