Samsung's first Exynos Auto chip is coming to future Audi cars
The Exynos Auto V9 will beef up the auto-maker's infotainment system.
Samsung's first Exynos chip for cars will power Audi's upgraded in-vehicle infotainment system starting in 2021, the company announced today. The Exynos Auto V9 is based on 8-nanometer (nm) process tech and comes complete with eight ARM Cortex-A76 cores, offering a max speed of 2.1 GHz. As a result, Samsung is promising premium audio features, multi-screen capabilities (with support for up to six displays and 12 camera connections). In addition, the Exynos Auto packs an ARM Mali G76 GPU, HiFi 4 audio digital signal processor and an intelligent neural processing unit.
We knew the chip was inbound following Samsung's announcement in 2017 confirming its partnership with Audi. Relations between the two companies actually date back to 2015, when Samsung became the first memory supplier to join the German auto-maker's Progressive SemiConductor Program. In October of last year, Samsung also revealed that it will supply an OLED display for Audi's first all-electric vehicle, the E-Tron. In addition, the Korean tech giant is building two auto chips for smart cars.
But Samsung isn't the only tech company chasing the hundreds of billions of dollars up for grabs in the automotive electrical parts industry. Qualcomm's processor, for instance, is a the heart of Panasonic's Android-powered vehicle infotainment system. Meanwhile, BlackBerry boasts the QNX car infotainment system, utilized by Volkswagen. NVIDIA is also making bank from its AI-powered infotainment system, thanks to big-name partnerships with Mercedes and (previously) Tesla, before the EV-maker switched to Intel.
