Samsung details the 64-bit processor it’s building in Apple’s shadow

[Youbetternot]

Looks like Samsung is planning on putting a 64 bit processor in one of their new phones. In fact samsung's new Samsung galaxy s5 and Galaxy note 4 will feature the 64-bit processor. Which are both coming out next year, Samsung announce that their new flagship phone the s5 will come out next January 

 

We have known for months now that Samsung will be following in Apple’s footsteps and introducing a new 64-bit mobile processor next year. The company fabricates the 64-bit A7 Apple uses in its iPhone 5s and iPad Air, and now it’s working on bumping its own Exynos processors up to 64 bits. During the company’s analyst day this week, Samsung executives again confirmed the move and offered some preliminary details on the company’s next-generation chipsets for the first time.

“Many people were thinking, why did we need 64-bit for mobile devices?” Stephen Woo, president of System LSI at Samsung Electronics, said during a presentation. “People were asking that question until three months ago. And now I think no one is asking that question. They’re asking, when can we have that?”

“We are marching on schedule,” the executive said. “We will offer the first 64-bit [processor] based on ARM’s own core. After that, we will offer an even more optimized 64-bit [processor] based on our own optimizations.”

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 are both expected to feature the company’s new 64-bit processors when they debut next year.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/samsung-details-64-bit-processor-building-apple-shadow-195504469.html

 

[Darell3]

Interesting!

[Maskot]

Wow, way to be a year late samsung.

[James_AJ]

this is why 64-bit in 5S actually mattered: to shift the whole industry from 32-bit to 64-bit and get software dev's prepped for 64-bit.

[Chevaishr]

it had better have 4 gigs of ram or all this 64bit talk would be bs 

[mr moose]

it had better have 4 gigs of ram or all this 64bit talk would be bs 

IKR,  I reckon samsung only did it because of all the sheep out there who think it must be better because apple did it.  

 

this is why 64-bit in 5S actually mattered: to shift the whole industry from 32-bit to 64-bit and get software dev's prepped for 64-bit.

 

I disagree, Developers have already said there is no real benefit to it yet.

 

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/02/apple-partner-qualcomm-pans-iphone-5s-a7-cpu-as-gimmick-yet-hints-at-own-64-bit-chip

 

It will be necessary at some point in the future, but not until we start seeing 4Gb ram in phones and apps that require a lot of memory. Until then it is just an extra cost that has no real benefit.

[ForsakenLive]

Does it really matter? Android is not gonna support it.

[Yoinkerman]

2gb phones for all of eternity!  zziiiiing!

 

it had better have 4 gigs of ram or all this 64bit talk would be bs 

[Glenwing]

Does it really matter? Android is not gonna support it.

 

If Android supported it, you'd say it didn't matter because there aren't any 64-bit CPUs.  One of them has to come first, it's not like they'll release at exactly the same minute.

[Glenwing]

Samsung is only doing this so they don't lose sales to Apple over something like 64-bit, even when it doesn't mean anything.

 

Phones aren't like computers, you don't need 64-bit support so that you're "prepared" when 64-bit becomes necessary; phones come as a package, so as soon as phones start coming out with more than 4GB of RAM, that's when you need a 64-bit CPU to go along with it, and not a second before.  It won't matter that the phones before it had 32-bit CPUs, because they aren't the ones getting additional RAM.

 

As for software support, having a 64-bit CPU now, even when there is no difference between 32-bit vs 64-bit software, so that when software does start to take advantage of it you'll be able to run it?  Sure, a little bit of advance preparation is fine.  But even most desktop software doesn't take any benefit from 64-bit.  Mobile software won't need it until it is more resource heavy than most desktop software, and if you buy a phone now with 64-bit planning to run software that heavy in the future, I'll tell you what, it sure won't be the instruction set width that's holding your performance back.  64-bit or no, current mobile CPUs are not going to be able to run software in the first place if it's so heavy that 64-bit actually matters.  It is absolutely pointless on phones now.  It will just slow down app production, and cost developers time and money making 64-bit versions so they can advertise "64-bit optimization", on top of still making 32-bit versions, to continue compatibility with older devices of course.

[Chevaishr]

2gb phones for all of eternity!  zziiiiing!

they do work nice  B) i've got a stock android tab and i'm never out of ram 

[Nicktrance]

Not sure you can consider it "in Apple's shadow" considering they make Apple's chips. Since the Galaxy S5 will probably come in an Exynos and Snapdragon version as usual, I guess it wouldn't have made sense for Samsung to go 64-bit with their programs until qualcomm catches up, which they should by that time.

[brownninja97]

it had better have 4 gigs of ram or all this 64bit talk would be bs 

why the hell would you need 4gb ram on a phone, we arents trying to run crysis on them now.

[Tataffe]

IKR,  I reckon samsung only did it because of all the sheep out there who think it must be better because apple did it.  

 

 

I disagree, Developers have already said there is no real benefit to it yet.

 

I don't know how Samsung handles this, but should iOS 8 be 64 bit, then the 5S is going to capable of running it. When you start enrolling 64bit-Hardware and 64bit-Software at the same time, older phones will not be able to update.

 

But there are always going to be the sheep who think that Samsung follows Apple only because people call for it.

[mr moose]

I don't know how Samsung handles this, but should iOS 8 be 64 bit, then the 5S is going to capable of running it. When you start enrolling 64bit-Hardware and 64bit-Software at the same time, older phones will not be able to update.

 

But there are always going to be the sheep who think that Samsung follows Apple only because people call for it.

My point is that currently 64bit is unnecessary so they don't need to make ios8 or android 64 bit until the time comes when the apps or the purpose of the phone require more than 4GB of ram. Until then the exercise is purely a marketing one from both apple and Samsung, given that the life cycle of a phone is around 2 years or less, to introduce it so early is adding a cost that can't be utilized until after you have upgraded the phone once or twice already.

[Glenwing]

I don't know how Samsung handles this, but should iOS 8 be 64 bit, then the 5S is going to capable of running it. When you start enrolling 64bit-Hardware and 64bit-Software at the same time, older phones will not be able to update.

 

But there are always going to be the sheep who think that Samsung follows Apple only because people call for it.

 

It's just forced obsolescence.  64-bit doesn't actually bring any benefit.  You're saying 64-bit CPUs are valuable so that you can run software that doesn't need to be 64-bit in the first place, but only is so that you need a shiny new 64-bit CPU to run it.

[beebskadoo]

Samsung is only doing this so they don't lose sales to Apple over something like 64-bit, even when it doesn't mean anything.

 

Phones aren't like computers, you don't need 64-bit support so that you're "prepared" when 64-bit becomes necessary; phones come as a package, so as soon as phones start coming out with more than 4GB of RAM, that's when you need a 64-bit CPU to go along with it, and not a second before.  It won't matter that the phones before it had 32-bit CPUs, because they aren't the ones getting additional RAM.

 

As for software support, having a 64-bit CPU now, even when there is no difference between 32-bit vs 64-bit software, so that when software does start to take advantage of it you'll be able to run it?  Sure, a little bit of advance preparation is fine.  But even most desktop software doesn't take any benefit from 64-bit.  Mobile software won't need it until it is more resource heavy than most desktop software, and if you buy a phone now with 64-bit planning to run software that heavy in the future, I'll tell you what, it sure won't be the instruction set width that's holding your performance back.  64-bit or no, current mobile CPUs are not going to be able to run software in the first place if it's so heavy that 64-bit actually matters.  It is absolutely pointless on phones now.  It will just slow down app production, and cost developers time and money making 64-bit versions so they can advertise "64-bit optimization", on top of still making 32-bit versions, to continue compatibility with older devices of course.

I agree with most of what you have said.

But Samsung rolling out 64Bit cpu's isn't so they don't lose to Apple. the vast majority of phone users don't give a damn about how many cores or what clockspeed or how much ram etc. they just want a good experience.  The best thing that Samsung could do is smooth out the edges of Touchwiz. It's so slow and crappy! The UI is good! it has a lot of great features that make sense and are useful, but the user experience is in general not that great. It's laggy especially on lower end hardware (like their 8 inch tablets) and still not buttery smooth on the high end stuff. This issue might be slightly improved with KitKat's lesser performance requirements but I wouldn't count on it honestly.

[Tataffe]

[..] Until then the exercise is purely a marketing one from both apple and Samsung, given that the life cycle of a phone is around 2 years or less, to introduce it so early is adding a cost that can't be utilized until after you have upgraded the phone once or twice already.

 

My iPod touch 4G (introduced during the iOS 4 period, now running iOS 6) and my Nokia E75 disagree

 

It's just forced obsolescence.  64-bit doesn't actually bring any benefit.  You're saying 64-bit CPUs are valuable so that you can run software that doesn't need to be 64-bit in the first place, but only is so that you need a shiny new 64-bit CPU to run it.

 

For now, maybe. Nobody knows what the future holds. Today it's easy to call this an unnecessary feature, when in a couple of years the user could be glad to have it.

[mr moose]

My iPod touch 4G (introduced during the iOS 4 period, now running iOS 6) and my Nokia E75 disagree

 

If your happy with phones that old, As I am (samsung flip and HTC desire), then the swap to 64bit will largely be irrelevant for you.  Thus still a marketing exercise for those who don't know better.

 

EDIT: yes in the future I think 64bit will be necessary, just not for a few iterations.

[neon]

64 bit support comes from the advancement to the next version of the ARM CPU, currently we are using ARMv7, ARMv8 was released in 2011 and are just being implemented into SoCs because development takes time, because this ARMv8 chip supports 64 bit you may as well and should use 64 bit software, it would be silly not to.

Manufacturers are moving to ARMv8 because it is newer and better, just like the move to ARMv7 from ARMv6.

 

Sure in an ideal world the CPUs would have supported 64 bit from the get go and avoided the whole 'transition' from 32 bit to 64 bit, even if it will be nigh on impossible to 'tell' although that won't stop people screaming murder that we 'don't need it so it _shouldn't happen_', even if a 64 bit mobile doesn't have more than 4GB of RAM that is not an excuse not to run a 64 bit OS on capable hardware.

 

Android already completely supports 64 bit so there is zero problem in that regard, including backwards compatibility to all today's apps.

 

But the main point ARMv8 is the new version of mobile CPUs that supports 64 bit a company would be stupid not to run a 64 bit OS if they are using the ARMv8 chip, if not they may as well just carry on using ARMv7.

 

So the article should read "Samsung is going to use the latest ARMv8 version of their Exynos SoC in next years flagships the S5 and Note 4, which replaces the ageing ARMv7 using in today's flagships"

The _only_ reason 64 bit is even mentioned is because Apple somehow made a big deal about 64 bit on their 5S, the transition should just 'happen', for the idiot consumer (no offence) there is no difference, there is not supposed to be (exactly like on Windows but you would be stupid not to run x64 Windows nowadays) but 64 bit does need to happen regardless of what anyone has to say, it may as well be as soon as the chips support it.