The 5nm Samsung Exynos 1080 will be unveiled in a dedicated event this month

Exynos 1080, Samsung’s first chipset based on the 5nm process, will be formally unveiled on 12 November, per industry insider Ice Universe.

We got a brief introduction to the chip last month when Samsung’s Dr. Pan Xuebao first talked about it.

The Exynos 1080 will apparently succeed the Exynos 980 which powers mid-tier phones like the Galaxy A71 5G and Galaxy A51 5G. The chip will apparently have ARM’s Cortex-A78 CPU as its primary core and it is also expected to feature the Mali G78 GPU, both of which are considerable improvements when compared to the Exynos 980. 

It was earlier reported that the Exynos 1080 is meant for China and that does seem to be the case, given that the chip will be unveiled in Shanghai, China and the unveiling event appears to be targeted at Chinese consumers only.

Ice notes that this is the first time Samsung is holding a special event for announcing a chip which is further proof that the South Korean giant has increased its focus on its chip arm.

Samsung often equips the American and Chinese variants of its phones with chipmaker Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs, and other models get the Exynos chips. The company received heavy criticism this year for the growing gap between its proprietary chips and Snapdragon SoCs. 

This apparently prompted the chaebol to make some changes to its chip operations. The company will reportedly no longer use its own Mongoose CPUs and will instead employ ARM’s CPU cores to give the performance a boost. It is also apparently going to replace Mali GPUs with AMD GPUs for better graphics next year.

Leaked benchmark scores suggest that the Exynos 1080 will outperform Qualcomm’s flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 865 Plus, which is based on the 7nm fabrication technology. 

The new SoC will likely fuel upper mid-range smartphones. 

Samsung could also announce another midtier chip during the event

It appears that Samsung will also announce another chipset during the event. SamMobile reports that a new mid-tier chipset called the Exynos 981 has popped up on the Bluetooth SIG website. Virtually nothing is known about the unannounced SoC, except that it will support Bluetooth 5.2. The name of the chip implies it will slot between the Exynos 980 and the Exynos 1080.