Samsung is reportedly half a decade behind its own deadline of producing its own graphics processing unit (GPU), forcing the South Korean mobile device maker to sign a long-term contract with ARM.
A report out of local Korean media says Samsung has signed a five-year contract with ARM, giving Samsung the rights to license ARM's Mali-T820, Mali-T830, T860 and T880 and use the GPUs on its devices released within the next five years.
Business Korea speculates that, since Samsung invested a considerable sum in the agreement with ARM, the firm could be putting off the production of its own GPU, although it could still continue with developing the GPU.
Reports that Samsung is working on its own GPU to make its Exynos series of mobile processors truly homegrown cropped up in 2014. At that time, Samsung's System LSI division was rumored to have poached engineers from top-selling chipmakers, including Intel, NVIDIA and AMD, all of which are experts in creating processors for desktop computers.
The rumored deadline for the release of its own GPU was supposed to be the middle of 2015. However, with a long-term agreement with ARM sealed, it is likely we will not be seeing a Samsung device running on an Exynos chip with a Samsung-made GPU anytime soon. A top Samsung official tells Business Korea that the firm chooses the quality of images over experimenting with new components in its devices.
"Image quality is a very important factor in premium mobile devices," says Vice President of Samsung's Processor Development Team Son Jae-cheol. "Being provided with ARM's Mali series, which has high expandability and energy efficiency, we will release devices that fit various product groups."
Since ARMs GPUs have proven their performance in Samsung's devices, including its flagships Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge which run a 772 MHz Mali-T760 MP8, it is far safer for Samsung to stick with a tried and tested GPU than risk using an untested GPU, even though the Mali-T760 cannot quite match up to its competitors in benchmark tests.
Still, the decision to stick with ARM becomes even more compelling, considering Apple and other Android device makers are using more and more powerful GPUs made by Adreno for the Qualcomm processors and Power VR for Apple's chips.
