Samsung Announces 8nm Exynos Auto V9 SoC To Power Next-Gen Audi Infotainment Systems

According to Samsung, the Exynos Auto V9 is an 8-core design using Cortex-A76 CPU cores (operating at up to 2.1GHz) along with a Mali G76 GPU and can be paired with either LPDDR4 or LPDDR5 DRAM. The Exynos Auto V9 features four HiFi 4 audio processors, a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) and supports Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-B standards. 

The SoC is capable of supporting twelve cameras and up to six displays within a vehicle. On that latter point, that means that you could have the instrument cluster in front of the steering wheel, an infotainment display in the dash, two displays mounted in the door panel to show images from door-mounted cameras and two displays mounted in the headrests of the front seats for the rear passengers (in just one imagined scenario).

The Audi e-tronmakes uses of the above-mentioned side-view cameras to replace traditional door mirrors. On the e-tron, the images from the cameras are displayed in the top-forward portion of the door card, below the A-pillar. It should be noted, however, that this feature is not year approved for use in the U.S. market.

“We are thrilled to introduce the new Exynos Auto line of products, starting with the Exynos Auto V9, which brings powerful processing performance to the next generation of automotive in-vehicle infotainment systems while meeting the industry’s strict reliability requirements,” said Kenny Han, vice president of Device Solutions Division at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung already has its first partner signed up for its Exynos Auto V9, and it’s a big one: Audi. Audi says that it will use the chip to power the infotainment system in a next-generation vehicle that will arrive in 2021. This is quite notable because Audi has in the past relied on NVIDIA hardware to handle those tasks. However, we don’t know if Audi plans to retain NVIDIA as a hardware partner or if it will be going all-in with Samsung for future systems integration with its future vehicles.

With that being said, this is just a further extension of Samsung’s existing partnership with Audi. The former provides OLED display panels which are used in the interior or current flagship Audi models.