Samsung unveils new Exynos 7 Octa 7870 processor for mid-range smartphones

Electronics giant Samsung on Wednesday revealed their latest smartphone processor, the Exynos 7 Octa 7870. 

The South Korean company built the 7870 SoC in-house, as a successor to the Exynos 7850, using the latest 14nm FinFET technology. “With increased performance and power efficiency, we anticipate widespread adoption of our new Exynos 7 Octa 7870 into mid-tier mobile devices,” said Ben K. Hur, Vice President of System LSI marketing, Samsung Electronics. “Consumers will experience enhanced performance as this is the first time a mobile application processor built on advanced 14nm process is available for these types of smart mobile devices.”

The advantage of applying the FinFET process to mid-range processors lies in better performance and power efficiency. The new Exynos 7 Octa 7870 processor consumes over 30 percent less power than mobile SoCs built with 28nm High-k Metal Gate process technology, at the same performance level, the company states in its release.

The Exynos 7870 packs eight 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 cores and a LTE Cat.6 2CA modem. The processor supports 1080p 60 fps video playback and WUXGA (1920x1200) display resolution. It's imaging processor supports up to 16MP for both rear and front cameras, or 8MP each in dual camera mode. The Exynos 7 Octa 7870 will be in mass production in the first quarter of 2016, so we can likely expect it to show up in phones by the end of the year.