Samsung announces Exynos 2100, processor that will likely power the Galaxy S21 in India

Exynos 2100 will succeed the Exynos 990.

Samsung announced the Exynos 2100, its most ‘advanced’ ARM-based mobile processor with integrated 5G, on Tuesday. That is just two days before it is supposed to launch the Galaxy S21, its next high-end flagship Galaxy S phone for global markets.

The real kicker is that this is the processor that will likely power the Galaxy S21 in India unless Samsung flips a switch or something and decides to launch it with Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 888–that is the version expected to be sold internationally including in the US.

We will leave all comparisons for when we will have the devices in hand–which should be soon enough. For now, here is a quick look at everything that the Exynos 2100 brings to the table.

The Exynos 2100 will succeed the Exynos 990 seen inside last year’s Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note series (in India). Paper specs suggest it is a complete overhaul in all the areas that matter including CPU, GPU, AI, and ISP–that should ‘theoretically’ entail higher performance and better efficiency–so there is a lot to look forward to.

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For some context, the Exynos 990 was based on Samsung’s 7nm LPP (EUV) manufacturing process and came with an 8-core CPU, with two custom Exynos Mongoose M5 cores clocked at 2.7GHz, two ARM Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.5GHz, and four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2GHz. This was paired with a Mali-G77MP11 GPU.

The Exynos 2100 cranks things up with an ‘improved’ tri-cluster structure made up of a single powerful ARM Cortex-X1 core clocked at 2.9GHz, three high-performing Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.8Ghz and four power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.2Ghz. The octa-core chip is also based on a more ‘advanced’ 5nm EUV process technology. The major takeaways are two.

Samsung’s new chip is said to be 10 per cent faster while consuming 20 per cent less power compared to the chip that it is replacing. For some more context, the new chip is claimed to offer 30 per cent ‘enhancement’ in multi-core performance.

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The bigger deal seems to be the new Mali-G78 GPU though that Samsung says will offer over 40 per cent better graphics over its predecessor. Samsung is also touting AR/VR or MR (Mixed Reality) experiences and highlighting advanced multi-IP governor (AMIGO), a technology that “overlooks and optimizes power usages of CPU, GPU, and other processes, allowing longer use time even with intense on-screen activities.”

Elsewhere, the Exynos 2100’s tri-core NPU can perform up to 26-trillion-operations-per-second (TOPS) with more than 2x efficiency, while its updated ISP can support 200MP cameras. Lastly, the chip’s integrated 5G modem–obviously–supports both sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G delivering downlink speed of up to 5.1 Gbps in sub-6GHz and 7.35Gbps in mmWave, or up to 3.0Gbps in 4G networks with 1024 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) support.

Samsung has confirmed the Exynos 2100 is now in mass production.