Samsung Reportedly Looking into AMD and Nvidia GPU Tech

Last year, rumours came out that Samsung was planning to develop their own GPU technology. While nothing came out immediately from those reports, we’re now getting a new rounds of rumours that suggest that Samsung hasn’t given up on diversifying their GPUs. According to the new report, Samsung is looking towards either AMD or Nvidia to provide the graphics grunt for their mobile SoCs.

Right now, Samsung either relies on Qualcomm or ARM to provide the GPU IP. This has meant either using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs or pairing ARM’s in-house architecture with their Mali GPUs. Now that Samsung is pursuing their own ARM-based CPUs to used in their Exynos processors, it only makes sense to do the same for their GPUs, bringing everything in-house. This will allow for tailored solutions, critical for improved integration along the lines of what Apple has done with their own in-house custom SoCs.

From Nvidia, Samsung could get their Pascal architecture, likely on  the 14nm node that Samsung is providing for the 2nd generation of that architecture. Its mobile chops are proven as well with the Nintendo NX deal. From AMD, there is Polaris which could easily be ported to Samsung’s 14nm process from partner Global Foundries, the fab that produces Polaris on 14nm. AMD also brings the benefit of HSA or Heterogeneous System Architecture, something Samsung is looking into.

At this point, it’s uncertain what Samsung is really planning to do. Their own internal efforts haven’t borne much fruit and patents are likely an obstacle given AMD and Nvidia’s history. Perhaps we may see a partnership between Samsung and either of the two GPU designers. Either way, it looks like Samsung may soon be striking out on their with the next-generation Exynos SoCs and push ARM, Qualcomm and Apple int he mobile SoC arena.