Mobile Processors Pick Up Steam: Samsung Unveils Exynos 2200 Processor

Lately, companies have been making it an initiative to pump out more and more processors for mobile applications. 

From Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Intel's 12th Gen, and AMD's latest Ryzen processors the mobile world has been hit by an onslaught of processors in the last two months. 

Adding another top company to the list is Samsung with its latest Exynos 2200 mobile processor.

 

Samsung's Exynos 2200 processor. Image used courtesy of Samsung

 

Hoping to bridge the gap between gaming consoles and mobile devices, the Exynos 2200 claims to be fully equipped with hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Arm-based processing memory. 

With this new processor in mind, this article will dive briefly look at the mobile processor trend that's been picking up the pace and then dive into Samsung's latest Exynos processor's ray tracing technology. 

 

Mobile Processors Target Gaming Industry

Recently, mobile processors have been required to reach new heights by attempting to blur the differences between mobile and desktop processors. 

As mentioned, Qualcomm and Intel are just two of the big tech companies that have announced several upgrades to their existing mobile processors. 

Intel's latest 12th-Gen processors will have i5, i7, and i9 cores, the most attention circled Intel's Core i9-12900K. 

With Intel's 12th iteration of core processing beginning mass production, the market-driven specification is built on a hybrid architecture of performance and efficiency cores. 

The P-core and E-cores provide a scalable multi-thread workload that establishes microarchitectures within the CPU to have 16 cores and 24 threads to perform tasks at fast 4800 mega transfers per second. 

 

Intel's 12th Gen processors. Image used courtesy of Intel

 

As for Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon processor, it created a lot of buzz for its approach to bringing PC-level quality graphics for mobile devices and vehicle operating systems. 

The latest Snapdragon 8, Gen 1 mobile platform will be on 4 nm technology and have an operating speed of 3200 MHz at LPDDR5 memory. 

A unique addition to the Snapdragon portfolio is the 7th Gen AI engine that brings AI-based echo cancellation and noise suppression to the mobile processor. 

With each new processor iteration for mobile applications coming from these large companies, they seem to be keeling mobile gamers in mind and aiming to keep pushing to the next level of processing technology. 

Hoping to jump on that bandwagon, Samsung's latest mobile processor aims to keep the momentum going with its ray tracing algorithms. 

 

Samsung’s Mobile Processor Introduces Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing

Samsung is now joining the mobile processor conversation of 2022 by announcing its latest Exynos 2200 that will feature an AMD RDNA 2 architecture. 

 

A few specs of the Exynos 2200. Screenshot used courtesy of Samsung

 

The graphics processing unit (GPU) utilizes Samsung's Xclipse model with the Arm-based CPU core and an upgraded neural processing unit (NPU). Additionally, it will bring ray tracing algorithms to redefine the gaming experience for mobile devices.

Software-accelerated ray tracing has been around for decades, mainly used in high-production cameras for films. Objects are illuminated with beams of light and bounce back to the audience, adding depth and realness to videos and images. 

Hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading are advanced graphic features that serve as the foundation for AMD architecture. 

Ray tracing introduces a new trait for the processor, which deals with light perception. Light physically moves off one surface, and depending on the color and movement, the light rays produce lighting effects for graphically rendered scenes.

Samsung has integrated their own Xclipse GPU that encompasses the AMD RDNA 2 to boost graphics and AI performance, variable rate shading (VRS) is a new technique that works thru the Xclipse GPU to optimize any workload by having designers apply lower shading rates in any area to create smoother gameplay for the user. 

Overall, the Exynos 2200 also improves security with dedicated cryptographic keys for robust user data encryption to secure a domain through unprotected wireless connectivity. 

The latest mobile processors for Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung support LPDDR5 memory at 3200 MHz speed and will need user reviews to establish which processor stands alone at the top.