Samsung Aims to Become Number One Android AP Vendor by Joining Forces with AMD and Arm

[Pickles von Brine]

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Samsung Electronics has reportedly laid out a plan to become the number one Android application processor (AP) vendor in the industry with its plan to join forces with AMD and Arm. The report of Business Korea indicates that Samsung wants to use both company's knowledge and IP to produce the best possible silicon. In early November of last year, Samsung has decided to shut down its division responsible for making custom CPU designs, and to start licensing IP from Arm. Also last year, Samsung has announced a strategic partnership with AMD to use its RDNA graphics processors in smartphones.

This has been a rumor for a while. It first started with rumors of AMD's RDNA chips coming to samsung smartphones a while ago. There has been some other stuff since. Should be interesting if that were the case. 
Overall, it would help propel AMD into the smartphone market with one of the largest phone manufactures in the world. Honestly, a win-win for both involved. 

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[Ash_Kechummm]

If only this would trickle down the stack to more affordable SKUs and not just in the i-need-to-sell-a-kidney-for-an-Ultra price range, Android would become truly competitive for gaming and video editing (especially on their tablets w/DeX)

[Lakobrija]

1 hour ago, Ash_Kechummm said:

If only this would trickle down the stack to more affordable SKUs and not just in the i-need-to-sell-a-kidney-for-an-Ultra price range, Android would become truly competitive for gaming and video editing (especially on their tablets w/DeX)

I'm sorry? Competitive mobile gaming?

[RejZoR]

They need to stop churning out 150 new phone models every month and support them in software for more than dumb 2 years (if lucky). There is no amount of hardware superiority that would win me back to Android after using iOS for a year and a half and experiencing its absolutely sublime software support and experience. I'd even use Exynos without complaining over its inferiority to Snapdragon (I'm from Europe after all and I'd get Exynos). But there is just no way I'd go with Samsung because their software support stinks just like with every single Android maker out there. Even Google's own phones. They should do better than garbage 2 years of major OS updates.

[Ash_Kechummm]

13 hours ago, RejZoR said:

They need to stop churning out 150 new phone models every month and support them in software for more than dumb 2 years (if lucky). There is no amount of hardware superiority that would win me back to Android after using iOS for a year and a half and experiencing its absolutely sublime software support and experience. I'd even use Exynos without complaining over its inferiority to Snapdragon (I'm from Europe after all and I'd get Exynos). But there is just no way I'd go with Samsung because their software support stinks just like with every single Android maker out there. Even Google's own phones. They should do better than garbage 2 years of major OS updates.

Exactly; I would've switched to iOS a long time ago if it wasn't for the high cost of entry and the locked down app store.

[Vishera]

Great,now new Samsung phones will have driver crashes,black screens and driver bugs...

[porina]

I welcome any attempt to improve hardware for Android. Presumably the ARM cores will be paired with AMD GPU IP. However I still hate Samsung's interpretation of Android so I'm not sure I'll buy it, but it may encourage other SoC manufacturers to step up their game also. Or if it is good enough, would they sell it to others?

[LAwLz]

If they open up to more vendors using their chips then I think they will have a very good chance in 2021 and 2022.

They have ditched their bad Mongoose cores and will use stock ARM cores (which by the way will have MASSIVE improvements in 2021 compared to 2020). The leaks/rumors is that the GPU they are developing together with AMD performs like a beast too.

And the rest of their SoC stack is pretty good. Good scheduler (the one for the Exynos 990 is very complex and good, although they only made it that way to cover up issues with the M5 cores). Their NPU and DSP are decent (would be good if they focused on NNAPI rather than their own proprietary APIs). Their modems are good. Their ISP is good.

 

 

15 hours ago, RejZoR said:

They need to stop churning out 150 new phone models every month and support them in software for more than dumb 2 years (if lucky). There is no amount of hardware superiority that would win me back to Android after using iOS for a year and a half and experiencing its absolutely sublime software support and experience. I'd even use Exynos without complaining over its inferiority to Snapdragon (I'm from Europe after all and I'd get Exynos). But there is just no way I'd go with Samsung because their software support stinks just like with every single Android maker out there. Even Google's own phones. They should do better than garbage 2 years of major OS updates.

Samsung does 3 major Android upgrades for their flagship phones now, which is as good as it gets with Android.

 

 

7 minutes ago, porina said:

but it may encourage other SoC manufacturers to step up their game also. Or if it is good enough, would they sell it to others?

I think that's the idea. Samsung's goals is to not only compete with Qualcomm, but dethrone them as the de-facto chip phone makers use.

[porina]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think that's the idea. Samsung's goals is to not only compete with Qualcomm, but dethrone them as the de-facto chip phone makers use.

I wasn't sure of the potential strategy here. If it is really good, and they kept it to themselves, they could get more of the Android market share. Balance that with the alternative, of selling the SoC to others. A different income stream, but they wont have so much advantage on devices. Maybe just a timed advantage as they potentially would have early access, depending on how their business units are arranged and work together.

[LAwLz]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

I wasn't sure of the potential strategy here. If it is really good, and they kept it to themselves, they could get more of the Android market share. Balance that with the alternative, of selling the SoC to others. A different income stream, but they wont have so much advantage on devices. Maybe just a timed advantage as they potentially would have early access, depending on how their business units are arranged and work together.

You have to remember that this is Samsung LSI is essentially is a different company from Samsung's mobile division. Both might be owned by Samsung, but they are essentially different companies trying to maximize their own profits.

 

I also think most smartphones are sold regardless of minor differences in the SoC. Sure Samsung might get a tiny edge over the competition if they keep their own chips to themselves, but I doubt that the edge it would give them would result in more phone sales to the point where it outweighs the potential revenue from selling to other manufacturers.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Ash_Kechummm said:

Exactly; I would've switched to iOS a long time ago if it wasn't for the high cost of entry and the locked down app store.

People constaly whine about "locked down" experience. Sorry, but after being on iOS for a year and a half now, I can't share the same opinion. Sure, you can't sideload apps. But when do you really do that? It's for pirated apps and whole Fortnite nonsense where Epic and Apple are dicking eachother over payment methods. Other than that, for 99% of users who just use official app store, it's no different than Android.

 

And if you can't afford highe rend iPhone you have the iPhone SE. Same experience, just less exciting hardware. Me personally, I'd recommend the vanilla iPhone variant. iPhone XR that I have is amazing device. Pro and Pro Max are frankly stupid overpriced. Also 64GB is enough for me. I store the rest on my cloud solution that isn't even iCloud...

If I was buying new phone when iPhone 11 was launched, I'd go with normal one. Or with iPhone 12. I don't even miss the wide lens that much, although you get that on newer entry models.

 

My iPhone XR was 850€. Yes, a lot of money, but paired with phenomenal software support of minimum 5 years, it's a good value if you stick with it for 5 years.

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

People constaly whine about "locked down" experience. Sorry, but after being on iOS for a year and a half now, I can't share the same opinion. Sure, you can't sideload apps. But when do you really do that?

I do that all the time...

I don't use the Play Store so i download the APKs and install them,usually from the website of the app when possible.

Software such as emulators don't release each and every build to the store,that's the reason why you barely see PPSSPP and Dolphin on iOS devices.

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, Vishera said:

I do that all the time...

I don't use the Play Store so i download the APKs and install them,usually from the website of the app when possible.

Software such as emulators don't release each and every build to the store,that's the reason why you barely see PPSSPP and Dolphin on iOS devices.

Yeah, but that's essentially piracy, really... And in all honesty, a very edge case. It's not what most people do.

[Doobeedoo]

That could be great relly. Cortex-X1 and Radeon graphics. They started to slowly increase OS updates which is good too. 

[cj09beira]

not sure what are people complaining about, my Samsung S7 still gets updates, and even if it didn't what of it, it wont change anything about how i use it, and if i really want i can simply install a custom rom with exactly the OS i want.

 

on topic doesn't seem to bring anything new from the last time we heard of the samsung + amd project 

[Ash_Kechummm]

On 8/14/2020 at 3:33 PM, RejZoR said:

...But when do you really do that? It's for pirated apps...

i do it when I want to test solutions like gcam (although I know iPhone's camera is like magic) or really doing anything with my device, like using onboard sensors for cool stuff like using it like the LG magic remote. but yes. that doesn't concern the general user, so you are right about that.

 

as for pricing, though, iPhones are cheap only in the States. In India (where I live), the SE costs closer to $600 when you convert prices from rupees (the local currency here) to USD. so not cheap at all, especially considering that the most used smartphones here are cheapo android phones (from chinese brands, samsung or nokia) that cost less than around $200.

[Ash_Kechummm]

On 8/14/2020 at 9:24 PM, RejZoR said:

Yeah, but that's essentially piracy, really... And in all honesty, a very edge case. It's not what most people do.

i can agree for the emulators, but there is a whole world out there filled with actually good android apps that never made it into the play store (although i do agree that people unintentionally download a ton of malware this way, so thanks google ig)

[Kisai]

On 8/14/2020 at 5:07 AM, Vishera said:

I do that all the time...

I don't use the Play Store so i download the APKs and install them,usually from the website of the app when possible.

Software such as emulators don't release each and every build to the store,that's the reason why you barely see PPSSPP and Dolphin on iOS devices.

Emulators don't show up on App stores because Piracy software is not allowed on them.

 

The only emulators you can theoretically get away with are for 8-bit computers that would have typically run BASIC (eg the C64 or Apple II) but as there is no legitimate way to get disk images, unless the original developer of such software for the machine to be included or as a IAP for it, it would still run into the problem of the app store needing to review the IAP content, and well that just comes right back to potential for such emulators being able to break into the OS.

 

If I want to play something that is only available on Android (and there's nothing that justifies that but humor me) MEMU works for that, but unless I want to hand over a google account to work with it, you have to sideload everything, and many games will flip out if you don't run them while signed into google. So apps that are sideloaded invite other kinds of tampering beyond just turning the check for the google services off (which apparently so trivial that there are entire "alternate app stores" that you can just download the APK's from, for everything where they've previously turned the check off, as well as assisting with getting around the geoblock.)

 

Which means, there's absolutely nothing stopping someone from pirating paid apps and games on Android, and whatever check Google sues is extremely flimsy.

[Vishera]

Just now, Kisai said:

Emulators don't show up on App stores because Piracy software is not allowed on them.

 

I didn't say they are not on app stores at all,

Also legally emulators themselves are not piracy,Piracy is when an unlicensed person get's it's hand on software illegally.

So if you have a license to that game you can load it on an emulator legally.

[Kisai]

5 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I didn't say they are not on app stores at all,

Also legally emulators themselves are not piracy,Piracy is when an unlicensed person get's it's hand on software illegally.

So if you have a license to that game you can load it on an emulator legally.

Don't care. We've been having this argument for 25 years on the internet, and the situation is basically "emulators for hardware not authorized by the hardware developer, are only used for piracy." In exactly the same breath "homebrew is an excuse for piracy."

 

If that was not the case, there would be no market for flashcarts.

[Yatharth Shah]

12 hours ago, Vishera said:

I didn't say they are not on app stores at all,

Also legally emulators themselves are not piracy,Piracy is when an unlicensed person get's it's hand on software illegally.

So if you have a license to that game you can load it on an emulator legally.

I agree, I have many NES and DS games, and want to run them on hardware that people use in this decade.