Samsung begins mass production of first 14nm wearable processor

Samsung has announced that the company has begun mass production of the industry’s first 14-nanometer FinFET application processor designed specifically for the wearables market. The dual core processor is called the Exynos 7 Dual 7270, and comes packed with an integrated LTE modem for wireless connectivity.

The Exynos 7270 is constructed from two low power Cortex-A53 cores, a Category 4 LTE 2CA modem, along with integrated radio, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Samsung states that building the chip at 14nm allows for a 20 percent improvement in power efficiency over an equivalent chip built on 28nm.

Samsung is building the Exynos 7270 using its elegant SiP-ePoP packaging, which allows the company to efficiently combine power management, DRAM and NAND flash memory components into a single stacked package. Not only does this save on space, with height falling by approximately 30 percent compared with its predecessor, but it’s also more power efficient.

See also: Samsung reportedly testing 10 nm Exynos 8895 chipset clocked at 4GHz92

Samsung hasn’t stated when the chip is likely to appear in any products, but new low-power smartwatches and fitness bands are the likely target market. To expedite development, Samsung has released a reference development platform that contains the processor, NFC chip, and other important sensory components found in wearable devices, which is immediately available for device manufacturers and developers.