Samsung will continue to licence ARM Mali GPU architectures for use in upcoming Exynos chips

Under this new, long-term agreement, ARM will licence multiple Mali GPU architectures to Samsung, ranging from the high-end Mali-T880 that is probably going to end up powering devices in the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note line-ups, to the power-efficient Mali-T820 and T830, and on to the mid-range Mali-T860 GPU core. Furthermore, Samsung has also secured rights to use upcoming GPU cores that ARM has yet to announce.

The Exynos 7420, the chip that powers the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge, uses an octa-core ARM Mali-T760 GPU. According to ARM, the Mali-T880 comes with 1.8 times the number crunching ability while consuming 40 percent power at the same load compared to the Mali-T760.

Just yesterday, a leaked benchmark result revealed that Samsung is working on a new power-efficient chipset called the Exynos 7850, one that will make use of a Mali-T720 GPU.

Samsung was previously rumored to be looking into creating custom GPU cores, but this recent announcement might indicate that it will be a while before the company challenges ARM on this front. At the very least, it's a sign that Samsung is still going to be dependent on ARM - the world's most popular IP licensor of mobile GPU designs - for the foreseeable future. In 2014, global shipment levels of chips with ARM GPUs reached the 450 million mark.

source: Samsung