Samsung touts latest Exynos 2200 chip as mobile game changer

Samsung Electronics Co. has unveiled a new premium mobile processor, the Exynos 2200, which the world’s top memory chipmaker said offers a console-level gaming experience on smartphones.

Samsung is unveiling a new mobile chipset for the first time in a year, inviting keen interest from both smartphone manufacturers and game developers.

The Exynos 2200, built on Samsung’s most advanced chip manufacturing technology – the 4-nanometer extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography process – is already being produced in large quantities, the company said on Tuesday.

The new mobile processor is expected to be used in Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series, its next flagship smartphone set to be unveiled in a couple of weeks.

The new chipset, which offers faster gaming loading, smoother frame rates and swift multitasking on smartphones, sports a new graphics processing unit (GPU), Xclipse, jointly developed with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). The Xclipse is based on the US chipmaker’s high-performance RDNA 2 architecture.

COLLABORATION WITH AMD, ARM

Samsung and AMD forged a strategic partnership in June 2019 for the development of the Xclipse GPU.

“The Exynos 2200 will redefine mobile game experience, aided by enhanced graphics and AI performance,” said Park Yong-in, president of Samsung’s System LSI business. “With this, Samsung will continue its efforts to lead the journey in logic chip innovation.”

A mobile application processor is a system on a chip (SoC) designed to support applications running in a mobile operating system environment.

The South Korean tech giant generates the bulk of its memory business profit from making basic chips and has been beefing up the development of logic chips such as mobile processors, image sensors and automotive chips to diversify its business channels.

The company’s flagship Exynos mobile chips power its Galaxy series of smartphones and mobile phones of China’s Vivo Communications Technology Co., the world’s sixth-largest handset-maker.

Samsung, also the world’s top smartphone maker, said the Xynos 2200 offers advanced graphic features such as the industry’s first hardware-accelerated “ray tracing,” which simulates how real-world light physically behaves inside the game, and “variable rate shading,” previously available only on PCs, laptops and consoles to optimize GPU workload.

“The Xclipse is the first result of multiple planned generations of AMD RDNA graphics in Exynos SoCs,” said AMD Senior Vice President David Wang. “We can’t wait for mobile phone customers to experience great gaming experiences based on our technology collaboration.”

SAMSUNG AIMS TO CATCH UP TO BIGGER RIVALS

The launch of the Xynos 2200 comes as Samsung is seeking to expand its presence in the fast-growing global application processor (AP) market.

Industry data showed the global mobile game industry sales reached $116 billion in 2021, up 15% from the previous year.

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung ranked fourth in the global AP market with an 8.7% share in terms of sales, following Qualcomm’s 39.2%, Mediatech’s  27.3% and Apple’s 21.5%.

Samsung’s AP market share has been sliding since it enjoyed a 14% share in 2019, with rivals such as Google and China’s Oppo entering the increasingly competitive market.

Samsung said on Tuesday the Exynos 2200 also offers upgraded on-device AI thanks to a new neural processing unit (NPU) it co-worked with British chip design firm Arm Ltd. to double the chipset’s performance compared to its predecessor, the Exynos 2100.

The latest chipset features enhanced 5G connectivity as well as a redesigned image signal processor (ISP) architecture to support ultra-high resolution of up to 200 megapixels, according to Samsung.

Write to Shin-Young Park at nyusos@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.