Quad-core A15 beast
A Samsung software engineer has inadvertently spilled the beans on an upcoming quad-core Exynos chip. Writing on a Linux kernel Git page, senior engineer on Samsung’s Solution Development Team Kukjin Kim confirmed the existence of an unannounced Exynos chip.
“This patch adds support for EXYNOS5440 SoC which is including ARM Cortex-A15 Quad cores,” wrote Kim. However, in previous entries, dating back to October, Kim also mentioned the SSDK5440 which he described as “a kind of reference board.” In spite of the leaks, the Exynos 5440 is still a bit of a mystery.
Some rumourmongers claim it will power the new Galaxy S IV, but at this point details are pretty scarce. The Exynos 5250 of Nexus 10 fame is Samsung’s first A15 chip, a dual-core clocked at 1.7GHz and paired up with speedy Mali T604 graphics. So it seems only logical that the quad-core should be quite a bit faster. Rumour has it that it will run at up to 2GHz, and that it will feature Mali T658 graphics, with eight cores versus the T604’s four cores.
It all sounds good, perhaps even a bit too good to be true. It sounds like overkill for any phone, even a flagship Galaxy device. While the 5440 is obviously in the works, we wouldn’t bet too much cash on seeing it in phones anytime soon. Tablets, of course, are another matter.
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