Samsung unveils AI-powered Exynos 9820 flagship SoC

Samsung Electronics has announced its latest premium application processor (AP), the Exynos 9 Series 9820, equipped for on-device Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. The Exynos 9820 features a fourth-generation custom CPU, 2.0-gigabits-per-second (Gbps) LTE Advanced Pro modem, and an enhanced neural processing unit (NPU) to bring new smart experiences to mobile devices.

The Exynos 9820 is an intelligent powerhouse with a separate hardware AI-accelerator, or NPU, which performs AI tasks around seven times faster than the predecessor. With the NPU, AI-related processing can be carried out directly on the device rather than sending the task to a server, providing faster performance as well as better security of personal information. The NPU will enable a variety of new experiences such as instantly adjusting camera settings for a shot based on the surroundings or recognizing objects to provide information in augmented or virtual reality (AR or VR) settings.

With an enhanced architecture design, the Exynos 9820’s new fourth-generation custom core delivers around 20 per cent improvement in single core performance or 40 per cent in power efficiency when compared to its predecessor which can load data or switch between apps much faster. In addition, the multi-core performance is also increased by around 15 per cent. The new mobile processor embeds the latest Mali-G76 GPU cores, which deliver a 40 per cent performance boost or 35 per cent power savings, allowing longer play time of graphic-intensive mobile games or interactive AR applications.

The LTE-Advanced Pro modem in the Exynos 9820 brings fast mobile broadband speeds of 2.0Gbps downlink with 8x carrier aggregation (CA) and 316 megabits-per-second (Mbps) uplink. At 2.0Gbps downlink speed, an FHD high-definition movie (3.7GB) can be downloaded in about 15 seconds and massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) can be played with less lag. With more aggregation of carriers than the previous solution along with 4×4 MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output), 256-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) scheme, and enhanced Licensed-Assisted Access (eLAA) technology, the modem delivers stable yet blazing speed on the go.

For more immersive multimedia experiences, Exynos 9820’s multi-format codec (MFC) supports encoding and decoding of 4K UHD video at 150 frames per second (fps). The MFC also renders colours in 10-bit, delivering more accurate representation of colour by offering a wider range of tones and hues.

The Exynos 9 Series 9820 is expected to be in mass production by the end of this year.