Samsung Galaxy S11 Gets Camera Upgrade, Expected To Use Exynos And Snapdragon Chips

Samsung’s next flagship smartphone Galaxy S11 will receive a huge camera upgrade, courtesy of the same sensor technology used in the newly-released Penta Camera smartphones Xiaomi Mi Note 10 and Mi Note 10 Pro.

Renowned tipster Ice Universe claimed that there’s a high probability the Samsung Galaxy S11 will get a new 108-megapixel camera setup. The massive upgrade will likely use the same ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor that Xiaomi used in their new flagship Penta camera smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro.

The camera sensor ISOCELL Bright HMX offers an impressive low-light performance. However, the tipster also said that the sensor that will be used on Samsung Galaxy S11 will be an entirely “new sensor” or an upgraded version of the ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor that was introduced in August. With this huge camera upgrade, Samsung could now overtake archrivals Apple and Huawei in the camera front.

About Samsung Exynos 990 -- the mobile chipset that will power the S11 huge camera upgrade

Adding further weight to the tipster’s latest claims about the Galaxy S11's upcoming huge camera upgrade is the recent introduction of the Samsung Exynos 990 mobile chipset. Samsung designed this next-generation mobile chipset to power the company's next flagship devices, which include the Galaxy S11. The new chip is also designed to support 108-megapixel camera sensors.

GSM Arena reported the newly-introduced Samsung Exynos 990 mobile chipset brings support for 120Hz displays, support for memory bandwidth with LPDDR5 data rates, new GPU, and a huge graphics performance boosts. It was designed to power the next-generation of Samsung flagship devices.

The Korean technology giant has developed the newest mobile processor using the 7nm EUV process. The new chip provides much faster processing and more power-efficient than the previous Samsung mobile chipsets, the Exynos 9820 and 9825.

In addition to the performance improvements, Samsung has also added a new 5G-ready Exynos modem 5123 to the company’s latest mobile chipset. The Samsung Exynos Modem 5123 is one of the first 5G modem chips in the market and it was designed to support virtually all networks, including the superfast 5G networks.

Galaxy S11 will be the last one to use the Exynos 990 mobile chips

Samsung is expected to start mass production of the Exynos 990 mobile chipset and Exynos modem 5123 by the end of this year -- just in time for the upcoming release of Samsung Galaxy S11. However, the Exynos 990 mobile chipset that will be used in the next flagship might be the last of their generation.

The Korean technology giant just confirmed plans that it will be closing its custom CPU division that was responsible for the development of the premium Exynos mobile chips found on most Samsung's flagship devices like the Galaxy S10.

Samsung representatives already confirmed the news of shutdown via a statement. In the statement sent to Android Authority, the company explained the decision was made in order to keep the Exynos products more competitive in the market. Samsung’s decision is based on a thorough assessment of the company’s System LSI business and market competition.

Reports said that the Samsung Exynos chips were too expensive to produce and that the Exynos in-house development was not competitive enough compared to the ubiquitous Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips. Samsung is expected to rely on other custom providers like Qualcomm or rival Chinese chipmaker Huawei. Samsung is also rumored to replace its in-house CPU development with an ARM-like approach, just like in Huawei and Qualcomm.

In addition, the Korean company has, reportedly, teamed up with tech giant AMD on new custom GPU solutions for mobile devices. Right now, there still no fresh details about this latest AMD-Samsung partnership.