Samsung already develops its own ARM-based processors that are used in some of the company’s smartphones, tablets, and other devices. But it looks like Samsung is looking to take even more control over the design of those chips.
Most Exynos processors tend to use Mali graphics designed by ARM. But according to a job posting at LinkedIn, Samsung is hiring engineers who can help the company develop its own GPUs for use in smartphones and other products including autonomous vehicles.
Samsung doesn’t provide many more details than that, but the job posting does make a few interesting points:
- Samsung plans to develop all of the technology in-house, giving the company control over the architecture, instruction set, and software.
- The “flagship GPUs” will be used for low-end mobile devices (like smartphones and tablets).
- The “nextgen GPUs” are for self-driving cars and other products that can leverage GPU technology for machine learning.
It’s unclear of “flagship” means that Samsung plans to bring the kind of graphics you’d expect to find in a high-end smartphone to entry-level devices, or if the company is just using the word to indicate that this is the first/foremost product the new GPU team will work on.
It’s also possible that this could all lead nowhere. It certainly sounds like Samsung is interested in building GPUs, but we’re still at the starting line and there’s a long way to go until the company reaches the finish line (if it ever does).
via WinFuture
Exynos is sold outside out the US, so this tech many never reach here. Seems interesting.