Samsung Exynos 7872 SoC launched with Bluetooth 5.0, iris scanning support

The newly launched Meizu M6S is powered by the Exynos 7872 processor.

By Chandrika

| Published: Thursday, January 18, 2018, 16:55 [IST]

Samsung has unveiled the new Exynos 5 7872 processor that will be present in a few mid-range smartphones this year. The first device to be powered by this chipset is the Meizu M6S, which was announced just yesterday. However, it remains to be seen which upcoming smartphones will carry the Samsung Exynos 5 7872 processor. When it comes to the specifications, the Exynos 5 7872 SoC is decent.

Samsung Exynos 7872 SoC launched with Bluetooth 5.0, iris scanning

Samsung has stated that with this new chipset, it wants to bridge the gap between mid-range and premium-range Android smartphones. Samsung further listed out the specifications of the Exynos 5 series 7872 SoC on its own official blog. Other than Meizu, which has several Exynos-powered smartphones, some other manufacturers also prefer using Samsung's in house processor.

Moving forward, let's take a look into the newly launched Samsung processor.

It is an hexa-core processor

The Samsung Exynos 5 7872 chipset is built on a 14nm FinFET process. It is equipped with a hexa-core CPU that comprises two Cortex-A73 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores. As claimed by Samsung, the single core performance is twice as better as compared to its predecessor.

The two Cortex-A73 CPUs are clocked at 2GHz, while the other four Cortex-A53 CPUs are clocked at 1.6GHz. In addition, the processor comes with a Mali-G71MP1 GPU, and an LTE Cat.7 modem that can offer up to 300Mbps download and 150Mbps upload speeds.

Support for iris scanning and other features

The key highlight of the Samsung Exynos 7872 SoC is that it has support for the iris scanning technology. This means we may see mid-range devices to feature iris scanners.

On the flip side, this processor doesn't seem to support dual camera setup. However, it can support up to 21.7MP rear as well as front cameras.
The Exynos 7872 is further equipped with an improved Image Signal Processor (ISP) and Multi-Format Codec. ISP can enable smartphones to sport an iris camera sensor up to 8MP.

As per Samsung, the processor has a hardware block for Smart WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) that can generate a WDR image with just a single shot. Smartphones with this chipset will be able to encode and decode full HD 120fps videos.

What's more, the Samsung Exynos 7872 SoC comes with LPDDR3 RAM, eMMC 5.1 internal storage and the SD 3.0 standard for expandable memory. It will also support a maximum screen resolution of 1,920×1,200 pixels.

Exynos 7872 powered smartphones will offer connectivity features such as Wi-Fi 802.11n dual-band, Bluetooth 5.0, CDMA, GSM, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, LTE-FDD, and LTE-TDD. While supported sensors include GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, and Galileo.

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Samsung working on an AI-enabled processor

Reportedly, Samsung is close to completing the development of Neural Processing Units (NPU), or "AI chips."

The South Korean tech giant has also confirmed the news as a spokesperson said, ""Development of AI chips is underway led by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology."

AI chipsets enhance the abilities of smartphones and servers to run AI based software.