Samsung reportedly in talks with AMD, Nvidia to license GPU tech for mobile devices

Shawn Knight

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Samsung has been interested in developing an in-house GPU for use with its own Exynos chipset for some time now with rumors on the matter dating back more than two years. The original plan was to have a solution in place prior to the Galaxy Note 5’s arrival in August 2015 but of course, that never materialized.

As you likely know, Samsung currently uses ARM’s Mali series of GPUs with its Exynos chipsets. The South Korean electronics giant is still very much interested in developing a custom GPU, the foundation of which may come from an established player in the graphics industry.

According to an exclusive report from SamMobile, Samsung is in talks with AMD and Nvidia about licensing GPU technology for future mobile devices.

One would think that Nvidia might be the favorite thanks to its superior Pascal architecture although AMD’s Polaris architecture shouldn’t be counted out. Just the other day, for example, Sony revealed a more powerful version of its PlayStation 4 game console powered by AMD’s graphics technology.

Moving to an in-house GPU solution would allow Samsung to cut costs as it would seemingly be cheaper to license GPU technology from AMD or Nvidia rather than outsource the hardware from a third party. Samsung could then pass those savings on to the consumer by lowering the price of its handsets or simply create larger profit margins (or perhaps even a mix of both).

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This sounds like a good idea that Nvidia will price themselves right out of...

That's the reason they stated they avoided getting this console gen's design win. AMD's architecture may be less power efficient but they have more experience doing semi-custom designs.

This could be a huge foot in the door for either company. It would be worth it even if they were breaking even.
 
This sounds like a good idea that Nvidia will price themselves right out of...

That's the reason they stated they avoided getting this console gen's design win. AMD's architecture may be less power efficient but they have more experience doing semi-custom designs.

This could be a huge foot in the door for either company. It would be worth it even if they were breaking even.

I would agree but Nvidia does not sign huge contracts to break even or they would have the console business right now among other mobile devices. Console was a huge foot into that world and they bowed out. Not saying it can't happen but it would be unlike them to do it that way.
 
I wasn't aware that AMD made mobile phone grade GPU's. We all know Nvidia do but what would a Samsung device want from AMD?
 
I wasn't aware that AMD made mobile phone grade GPU's. We all know Nvidia do but what would a Samsung device want from AMD?

If it's about history... They did. Adreno GPU (used in Qualcomm SoCs and the like) was initially developed by ATI. It was sold to Qualcomm in 2009, though.

Google has brought Vulkan API to Android and it will replace OpenGL in the future. We all know AMD's GCN architech is better than nVidia's current one at Vulkan, right?
 
If only this would mean developers optimize their engines for Samsung. Games such as Asphalt and NFS are poorly optimized compared to iOS.
 
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