While those in North America are treated to Qualcomm-powered Galaxy phones, Samsung forces its in-house Exynos SoC on buyers in most other markets. While capable, Exynos chipsets rarely manage to one-up their Snapdragon counterparts, both in performance and power efficiency. Samsung could change that with its upcoming 5nm flagship chip that is rumored to enter mass production sometime in August.

ZDNet Korea has secured some information about the unannounced Samsung ARM chip, which is said to be based on the 5nm process — an improvement over the current industry standard of 7nm. Since it’ll follow the Exynos 990 found on the international variants of the Galaxy S20, the chip could be marketed under the "Exynos 992" name. The publication’s sources suggest a late-August timeline for the SoC’s mass production and its subsequent official unveiling.

The Exynos 990 has been criticized extensively for not being as energy-efficient as the Snapdragon 865. The 992 will hopefully address that using ARM’s newest Cortex-A78 design, which is said to be 20% more efficient. We can also look forward to better graphics with the accompanying Mali G78 GPU, which could be up to 25% more powerful.

August is also when Samsung is expected to announce its Galaxy Note20 series, which appeared in leaked renders just a few days back. But the company is allegedly still deciding whether the international Note20 variants will come equipped with the new 992 or keep the older 990. Historically speaking, Note-branded phones have routinely borrowed processors from their preceding Galaxy S line.

Source: ZDNet Korea (in Korean)