Samsung's 5G Exynos 980 chip to debut in a Vivo smartphone this year

Vivo has reiterated that it's working on a smartphone which will feature Samsung's integrated 5G mobile processor. No further details have been made available at this point but the company says the device will be out before the end of this year.

Exynos 980 5G's first outing will be in a Vivo smartphone

Existing solutions require a separate 5G modem. The biggest advantage of an integrated solution would be allowing the technology to trickle down to more affordable devices. The Galaxy A90 5G, Samsung's only non-flagship 5G smartphone, also uses the high-end Snapdragon 855 processor with the X50 5G modem. No wonder it costs $700.

Samsung's Exynos 980 is based on the company's 8nm FinFET process technology. It has two 2.2GHz Cortex-A77 cores and six 1.80GHz Cortex-A55 cores in addition to the Mali-G76 MP5 GPU. There's an onboard neural processing unit as well for artificial intelligence tasks.

The Exynos 980 doesn't require a separate 5G modem. This will help reduce power consumption and free up more space inside the device as well. The integrated modem supports 5G to 2G networks with up to gigabit downlink speeds in 4G LTE. It even supports the new Wi-Fi 6 standard.

Vivo's upcoming smartphone will likely be the first outing for Samsung's integrated 5G chip. We can expect to see it in the company's own devices down the line. Perhaps some of the 2020 Galaxy A models might feature it as well.