Exynos



The Samsung Exynos, formerly Hummingbird, is a series of ARM-based system-on-chips developed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division and manufactured by Samsung Foundry. It is a continuation of Samsung's earlier S3C, S5L and S5P line of SoCs.

Exynos is mostly based on the ARM Cortex cores with the exception of some high end SoCs which featured Samsung's proprietary "M" series core design; though from 2021 onwards even the flagship high-end SoC's will be featuring ARM Cortex cores.

History
In 2010, Samsung launched the Hummingbird S5PC110 (now Exynos 3 Single) in its Samsung Galaxy S smartphone, which featured a licensed ARM Cortex-A8 CPU. This ARM Cortex-A8 was code-named Hummingbird. It was developed in partnership with Intrinsity using their FastCore and Fast14 technology.

In early 2011, Samsung first launched the Exynos 4210 SoC in its Samsung Galaxy S II mobile smartphone. The driver code for the Exynos 4210 was made available in the Linux kernel and support was added in version 3.2 in November 2011.

On 29 September 2011, Samsung introduced Exynos 4212 as a successor to the 4210; it features a higher clock frequency and "50 percent higher 3D graphics performance over the previous processor generation". Built with a 32 nm high-κ metal gate (HKMG) low-power process; it promises a "30 percent lower power-level over the previous process generation".

On 30 November 2011, Samsung released information about their upcoming SoC with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 CPU, which was initially named "Exynos 5250" and was later renamed to Exynos 5 Dual. This SoC has a memory interface providing 12.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth, support for USB 3.0 and SATA 3, can decode full 1080p video at 60 fps along with simultaneously displaying WQXGA-resolution (2560 × 1600) on a mobile display as well as 1080p over HDMI. This SoC was used in some Chromebooks from 2013. Samsung Exynos 5 Dual has been used in a 2015 prototype supercomputer, while the end-product will use a chip meant for servers from another vendor.

On 26 April 2012, Samsung released the Exynos 4 Quad, which powers the Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II. The Exynos 4 Quad SoC uses 20% less power than the SoC in Samsung Galaxy S II. Samsung also changed the name of several SoCs, Exynos 3110 to Exynos 3 Single, Exynos 4210 and 4212 to Exynos 4 Dual 45 nm, and Exynos 4 Dual 32 nm and Exynos 5250 to Exynos 5 Dual.

On 2010 Samsung founded a design center in Austin called Samsung's Austin R&D Center (SARC). Samsung has hired many ex-AMD, ex-Intel, ex-ARM and various other industry veterans. The SARC develop high-performance, low-power, complex CPU and System IP (Coherent Interconnect and memory controller) architectures and designs. In 2012, Samsung began development of GPU IP called "S-GPU". After a three-year design cycle, SARC's first custom CPU core called the M1 was released in the Exynos 8890 in 2016. In 2017 the San Jose Advanced Computing Lab (ACL) was opened to continue custom GPU IP development. Samsung's custom CPU cores were named Mongoose for four generations, named M1 through M4, and Exynos SoCs with such cores were never on par in power efficiency or performance with their Qualcomm Snapdragon equivalents.

On 3 June 2019, AMD and Samsung announced a multi-year strategic partnership in mobile graphics IP based on AMD Radeon GPU IP. NotebookCheck reported that Samsung are targeting 2021 for their first SoC with AMD Radeon GPU IP. However, AnandTech reported 2022. In August 2019, during AMD's Q2 2019 earnings call, AMD stated that Samsung plans to launch SoCs with AMD graphics IP in roughly two years. The first SoC to use Radeon GPU were Exynos 2200, introduced in January 2022, with a custom Xclipse 920 based on AMD's RDNA 2 microarchitecture.

On 1 October 2019, rumors emerged that Samsung had laid off their custom CPU core teams at SARC. On 1 November 2019, Samsung filed a WARN letter with the Texas Workforce Commission, notifying of upcoming layoffs of their SARC CPU team and termination of their custom CPU core development. SARC and ACL will still continue development of custom SoC, AI, and GPU.

In June 2021, Samsung hired engineers from AMD and Apple to form a new custom architecture team.

In October 2021, Google released their Pixel 6 series of phones based on Google's Tensor SoC, which was made in collaboration with Samsung.

Current Exynos SoCs (2020–present)
Starting in 2020 Samsung introduced a new series of Exynos SoCs with lower numbers than in the past. This indicates a cut between the past Exynos SoCs at least in naming.

Exynos 1000 series
Exynos 1080
 * 5 nm (Samsung 5LPE)
 * CPU features
 * 1 + 3 + 4 cores (2.8 GHz Cortex-A78 + 2.6 GHz Cortex-A78 + 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55)
 * GPU features
 * Mali G78 MP10
 * Vulkan 1.1.177
 * DSP features
 * Multi Format Codec (MFC) video acceleration for H.265/HEVC, H.264, VP9
 * HDR10+
 * ISP features
 * Modem and wireless features
 * Bluetooth 5.2 (from 5.0 on Exynos 990)
 * Exynos Modem Integrated
 * LTE Category 24/18
 * 6CA, 256-QAM
 * 5G NR Sub-6 (DL = 5100 Mbit/s and UL = 1920 Mbit/s)
 * 5G NR mmWave (DL = 7350 Mbit/s and UL = 3670 Mbit/s)
 * 5G NR mmWave (DL = 7350 Mbit/s and UL = 3670 Mbit/s)

Exynos 2000 series
Exynos 2100
 * 5 nm (Samsung 5LPE) process
 * 6 MB System Level Cache (SLC)
 * CPU features
 * 1 + 3 + 4 cores (2.91 GHz Cortex-X1 + 2.81 GHz Cortex-A78 + 2.2 GHz Cortex-A55)
 * 19% better perf on single thread
 * 33% better perf on multi threads
 * GPU features
 * Mali G78 MP14 at 854 MHz
 * 40% better perf
 * Vulkan 1.1.213
 * DSP features
 * 8K30 & 4K120 encode & 8K60 decode
 * Add support of AV1 in 8K60 (decode support claimed, however not implemented, thus this claim is unverified)
 * Multi Format Codec (MFC) video acceleration for H.265/HEVC, H.264, VP9
 * HDR10+
 * ISP features
 * Single: 200MP or Dual: 32MP+32MP
 * Up to quad simultaneous camera
 * Modem and wireless features
 * Bluetooth 5.2 (from 5.0 on Exynos 990)
 * Exynos Modem Integrated
 * LTE Category 24/18
 * 6CA, 256-QAM
 * 5G NR Sub-6 (DL = 5100 Mbit/s and UL = 1920 Mbit/s)
 * 5G NR mmWave (DL = 7350 Mbit/s and UL = 3670 Mbit/s)
 * Single band GNSS support: GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou

Exynos 2200


 * 4 nm (Samsung 4LPE) process
 * 8 MB System Level Cache (SLC)
 * CPU features
 * 1 + 3 + 4 cores (2.8 GHz Cortex-X2 + 2.5 GHz Cortex-A710 + 1.9 GHz Cortex-A510)
 * 1 MB + 3x 512 KB + 2x 256 KB L2
 * 4 MB L3
 * GPU features
 * Xclipse 920 at 1306 MHz (RDNA 2 384:24:24:6 3 WGP, 1 MB L2)
 * Vulkan 1.3.231
 * Ray tracing (Hardware based)

Exynos 2400


 * 4 nm (Samsung 4LPP+) process
 * CPU features
 * 1.7x increase in CPU performance compared to Exynos 2200
 * 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 cores (3.21 GHz Cortex-X4 + 2.9 GHz Cortex-A720 + 2.59 GHz Cortex-A720 + 1.96 GHz Cortex-A520
 * 2 MB + 2x 512 KB + 3x 512 KB + 4x 256 KB L2
 * 8 MB L3
 * GPU features
 * Xclipse 940 (RDNA 3) at 1095 MHz (customized RDNA 3 768:48:32:12 Hexa core (6 WGP), 2 MB L2)
 * ANGLE-based driver supporting Vulkan 1.3.231
 * Ray tracing (Hardware based)
 * NPU features
 * 17K MAC units, consisted of two GNPUs and two SNPUs
 * 14.7x boost in AI performance compared to Exynos 2200

List of Exynos modems
Exynos Modem 303


 * Supported modes LTE FDD, LTE TDD, WCDMA and GSM/EDGE
 * LTE Cat. 6
 * Downlink: 2CA 300 Mbit/s 64-QAM
 * Uplink: 100 Mbit/s 16-QAM
 * 28 nm HKMG Process
 * Paired with: Exynos 5 Octa 5430 and Exynos 7 Octa 5433
 * Devices using: Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and Samsung Galaxy Alpha

Exynos Modem 333


 * Supported modes LTE FDD, LTE TDD, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and GSM/EDGE
 * LTE Cat. 10
 * Downlink: 3CA 450 Mbit/s 64-QAM
 * Uplink: 2CA 100 Mbit/s 16-QAM
 * 28 nm HKMG Process
 * Paired with: Exynos 7 Octa 7420
 * Devices using: Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Samsung Galaxy A8 (2016)

Exynos Modem 5100


 * Supported Modes: 5G NR Sub-6 GHz, 5G NR mmWave, LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, HSPA, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA, GSM/EDGE
 * Downlink Features:
 * 8CA (Carrier Aggregation) in 5G NR
 * 8CA 1.6 Gbit/s in LTE Cat. 19
 * 4x4 MIMO
 * FD-MIMO
 * Up to 256-QAM in sub-6 GHz, 2 Gbit/s
 * Up to 64-QAM in mmWave, 6 Gbit/s
 * Uplink Features:
 * 2CA (Carrier Aggregation) in 5G NR
 * 2CA in LTE
 * Up to 256-QAM in sub-6 GHz
 * Up to 64-QAM in mmWave
 * Process: 10 nm FinFET Process
 * Paired with: Exynos 9820 and Exynos 9825
 * Devices using: Samsung Galaxy S10 and Samsung Galaxy Note 10

Exynos Modem 5123


 * Supported Modes: 5G NR Sub-6 GHz, 5G NR mmWave, LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, HSPA, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA, GSM/EDGE
 * Downlink Features:
 * 8CA 1024-QAM in LTE Cat. 24 (3.0 Gbit/s )
 * Up to 256-QAM in sub-6 GHz (5.1 Gbit/s)
 * Up to 64-QAM in mmWave (7.35 Gbit/s)
 * Uplink Features:
 * 2CA 256-QAM in LTE Cat. 22 (422 Mbit/s )
 * Up to 256-QAM in sub-6 GHz
 * Up to 64-QAM in mmWave
 * Process: 7 nm FinFET Process
 * Paired with: Exynos 990, Exynos 2100, and Google Tensor
 * Devices using: Samsung Galaxy S20, Samsung Galaxy Note 20, Samsung Galaxy S21, and Google Pixel 6

Exynos Modem 5300
 * Supported Modes: 3GPP Release 16 5G NR Sub-6 GHz & mmWave (SA/NSA), LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, HSPA, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA, GSM/EDGE
 * Downlink Features: Up to 10 Gbit/s
 * 5G sub-6 GHz
 * Up to 256-QAM
 * 4x4 MIMO
 * 200 MHz carrier aggregation
 * 5G mmWave
 * Up to 64-QAM
 * 2x2 MIMO
 * 800 MHz carrier aggregation
 * Uplink Features: Up to 3.9 Gbit/s
 * 5G sub-6 GHz
 * Up to 256-QAM
 * 2x2 MIMO
 * 400 MHz carrier aggregation
 * 5G mmWave
 * Up to 64-QAM
 * 2x2 MIMO
 * 800 MHz carrier aggregation
 * Process: 4nm EUV
 * Integrated into: Exynos 2200, Google Tensor G2, and Google Tensor G3
 * Devices using: Samsung Galaxy S22, Google Pixel 7, and Google Pixel 8

Exynos Modem 5400
 * Supported Modes: 3GPP Release 17 5G NR Sub-6 GHz & mmWave (SA/NSA/NTN), LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD, HSPA, WCDMA, GSM/EDGE, NB-IoT NTN
 * Downlink Features:
 * 5G FR1
 * Up to 11.2 Gbit/s
 * Up to 1024-QAM
 * 4x4 MIMO
 * 380 MHz carrier aggregation (5CA: 3x 100 MHz + 2x 40 MHz)
 * 5G FR2
 * Up to 14.8 Gbit/s
 * Up to 256-QAM
 * 2x2 MIMO
 * 1000 MHz carrier aggregation
 * Uplink Features: Up to 3.9 Gbit/s
 * 5G FR1
 * Up to 256-QAM
 * 2x2 MIMO
 * 400 MHz carrier aggregation
 * 5G FR2
 * Up to 64-QAM
 * 2x2 MIMO
 * 800 MHz carrier aggregation
 * Process: 4nm EUV
 * Integrated into: Exynos 2400
 * Devices using it: Samsung Galaxy S24

List of Exynos IoT SoCs
Exynos i T200 


 * CPU: Cortex-M4 @ 320 MHz, Cortex-M0+ @ 320 MHz
 * WiFi: 802.11b/g/n Single band (2.4 GHz)
 * On-chip Memory: SRAM 1.4 MB
 * Interface: SDIO/ I2C/ SPI/ UART/ PWM/ I2S
 * Front-end Module: Integrated T/R switch, Power Amplifier, Low Noise Amplifier
 * Security: WEP 64/128, WPA, WPA2, AES, TKIP, WAPI, PUF (Physically Unclonable Function)

Exynos i S111 


 * CPU: Cortex-M7 200 MHz
 * Modem: LTE Release 14 NB-IoT
 * Downlink: 127 kbit/s
 * Uplink: 158 kbit/s
 * On-chip Memory: SRAM 512 KB
 * Interface: USI, UART, I2C, GPIO, eSIM I/F, SDIO(Host), QSPI(Single/Dual/Quad IO mode), SMC
 * Security: eFuse, AES, SHA-2, PKA, Secure Storage, Security Sub-System, PUF
 * GNSS: GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou

Exynos Auto series
The Exynos Auto V9 comes with additional features such as:


 * Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-B standards
 * Safety island core
 * 4× Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP
 * Supports up to 6 displays, and up to 12 camera connections (4/4/4 MIPI CSI)
 * Supports 4096x4096 120fps encoding and decoding with HEVC(H.265)
 * 2x Gb Ethernet

The Exynos Auto V920 comes with additional features such as:
 * 3× Tensilica HiFi 5 DSP
 * Supports up to 6 Displays (3x 5K (8K*2K) + 3x DFHD (3840*1440)), and up to 12 Cameras (3x MIPI CSI 4lanes)
 * Supports 4K 240fps decoding (HEVC), 4K 120fps encoding
 * 2x USXGMII (10 Gbps) Ethernet

Controversies
Some of Samsung's phone models released between 2019 - 2021 that used Exynos 9611 processor were widely reported by customers having random restarts, freezing and boot-loops. Specific phone models include the Galaxy A50, A50s, A51, M30s, M21, M31, M31s, F41 and Galaxy M21 (2021). Although the issue went unreported on mainstream media and very few YouTube reviewers covered it based on user reports,  the issues were widely documented on Samsung Members official community forum      as well as Reddit & other forums. The impact was significant with hundreds of user posts & comments between 2020 and 2023. Samsung did free board replacements for some early customers who had the phone in warranty. However, the majority of people faced the issue after the 12 month warranty period, mostly starting 1.5 - 3 years after purchase. Samsung never officially acknowledged the issue and no software update was released to solve the problem, although the phones received the promised minimum 4 year security updates. The only official solution available to customers was to purchase replacement board that cost around 60-70% of the phone's cost. Most users resorted to risky yet cheaper 3rd party repair that required re-soldering (also called reballing) the CPU & RAM PoP (Package on Package) which managed to solve issue according to dozens of user reports on said forums.

Similar platforms

 * A-Series by Allwinner
 * Apple silicon (A/S/T/W/H/U/M series) by Apple Inc.
 * Kirin by HiSilicon (Huawei)
 * i.MX by NXP
 * Jaguar and Puma by AMD
 * MT by MediaTek
 * NovaThor by ST-Ericsson
 * OMAP by Texas Instruments
 * RK by Rockchip Electronics
 * Snapdragon by Qualcomm
 * Tegra by Nvidia