Samsung's newest flagship mobile chipset, the Exynos 2200, was supposed to be announced on January 11. After missing that date, it's now set to launch alongside the Galaxy S22 series of flagship smartphones. The anticipation level for the Exynos 2200 is pretty high as it's the first mobile chipset from Samsung and AMD's partnership. The partnership would see the Exynos 2200 feature a GPU based on AMD's RDNA2 architecture and bring benefits such as ray tracing.
Samsung is one of the few manufacturers that makes its own chipsets that power its smartphones. Some of its chipsets even appear in phones from competing brands. For example, some of its Exynos chipsets have appeared in phones from Chinese brands Meizu and Vivo. Apart from its Exynos chips, Samsung's semiconductor foundry also makes chipsets for other chip companies such as Qualcomm.
A Samsung official revealed to Korean publication Business Korea that the unveiling of the Exynos 2200 has been pushed back. The source reports that Samsung will now unveil the chipset when it announces “a new Samsung phone,” which is believed to be the Galaxy S22. Samsung's decision not to launch the chipset on the initially scheduled date has raised concerns and rumors, one of which is that there is an issue with the chipset. However, the unnamed Samsung Electronics official quelled rumors about issues with the chipset's production and performance. Samsung has previously announced new chipsets ahead of their debut in a smartphone. With its decision to now delay the unveiling until it announces a new phone, it's a move that has been pulled directly from Apple's playbook. Apple is known to combine the announcement for a new chipset and a new phone, which is why the Apple A15 Bionic was announced alongside the iPhone 13 series it powers.
Don't Rule Out An Exynos Powered Galaxy S22
The Exynos 2200 is expected to be the chipset inside some regional variants of the Galaxy S22 series, while the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor will appear in the variants sold in North America. However, some rumors have speculated that all regions will get the new Qualcomm flagship chipset. Based on the info that the Exynos 2200 will be unveiled alongside the Galaxy S22 series, there is a strong chance that there will still be variants of the Galaxy S22 line with an Exynos chip. That might not be good news for the regions that have always gotten Exynos variants of Samsung's flagship phones. While Samsung improves its chips year after year, they're typically not up to par with their Snapdragon variants. Nevertheless, the Samsung official is assuring folks that the GPU in the new chipset will fix the issues of its predecessor, the Exynos 2100.
An unconfirmed report has said that Samsung will launch the Galaxy S22 series on February 8, however, it is yet to confirm if that is indeed the date of its first Galaxy Unpacked event for 2022. Apart from the Exynos 2200 and the Galaxy S22 series (which has three models, including an Ultra model with a built-in S Pen stylus), Samsung is also expected to announce a trio of Galaxy Tab S8 flagship tablets.
Source: Business Korea