Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad offers ‘phenomenal multitasking abilities’

Designed on a 32nm HKMG process, the chip exceeds 1.4GHz per core based on the ARM Cortex-A9. Samsung says it will enable double the processing power while consuming 20% less power than its predecessor, the Exynos 4 Dual. "The quad core processor offers phenomenal multitasking abilities surpassing any single or dual application processor. Since all the cores must share a single battery, the power management and efficiency in the limited battery capacity are indispensable for mobile computing devices," said Taehoon Kim, vice president of system LSI marketing, device solutions, Samsung. With different tasks running on different cores, users can potentially complete more tasks in less time. Further reduction in power is achieved by the processor adapting different levels of voltage and frequency when changing workloads. The Exynos 4 Quad includes a full 1080p hd video hardware codec, an embedded image signal processor interface for camera functionality and an HDMI 1.4 interface for multimedia content transmission. It is also pin to pin compatible with the 32nm process Exynos 4 Dual, so it should be easily adopted by designers. The processor is scheduled to be adopted into Samsung's next Galaxy smartphone which is due in May.