Rumours about the next Samsung Galaxy S smartphone appear to be picking up steam. Following a report that Samsung is looking to unveil the Galaxy S5 as early as January 2014 comes word that it could sport a next-generation Exynos processor with a with 14nm architecture and 64-bit support.
According to Korean news site DDaily, Samsung is looking to skip the 20nm process node entirely and go straight to a 14nm one. The Exynos 6 processors would also use ARM’s big.LITTLE octa-core architecture with Cortex A57 and Cortex A53 as the big and LITTLE cores respectively. Power consumption could be half that of the Exynos 5420 SoC.
The report explains that Samsung is reportedly concerned about competition in the foundry business with both TSMC and Global Foundries set to introduce processors based on a 20nm architecture. The decision to go directly to the 14nm node would give it an edge over its competitors.
Production of sample units is expected to be completed by the end of the year with mass production to presumably follow early next year. If so, it may well be too late for the Galaxy S5 should Samsung want to launch it in early 2014.
While a 14nm 64-bit processor would certainly help Samsung distinguish the Galaxy S5 from its competition, it appears unlikely that it will be able to pull it off for early 2014. A late 2014 or early 2015 launch is more realistic. Perhaps for the Samsung Galaxy S6?