Samsung Electronics has announced the newest member of its Exynos family of application processors, the Exynos 8 Octa 8890. This chip is Samsung's second premium AP built on 14nm FinFET process technology.

The Exynos 8 Octa is Samsung's first AP to include the company's initial premium custom CPU cores based on 64-bit ARMv8 architecture providing over 30% improvement in performance and 10% in power efficiency compared to the Exynos 7 Octa, the company noted. This chip also supports enhanced heterogeneous multi-processing for efficient usage of the eight cores, four custom and four ARM Cortex-A53.

The Exynos 8 Octa is Samsung's first integrated one-chip solution in its premium line-up that combines the application processor and modem, the company indicated. Samsung has delivered one-chip Exynos solutions for mid to high-end smartphones in recent years. The Exynos 8 Octa integrates the most advanced LTE Rel.12 Cat.12/13 modem that enables maximum download speed of up to 600Mbps (Cat.12) and upload speed of up to 150Mbps (Cat.13) with carrier aggregation.

The one-chip solution also benefits OEMs with a reduced number of parts needed and overall space required for a device, allowing more flexible design options, Samsung said.

In addition, the Samsung Exynos 8 Octa employs ARM's latest GPU, Mali-T880, the company disclosed.

Samsung plans to begin mass production of the Exynos 8 Octa in late 2015.

"The Exynos 8 Octa is a leading-edge application processor for next-generation mobile devices that incorporates Samsung's mobile technology leadership in CPU, ISP, and modem as well as process technology," said Kyushik Hong, VO of Samsung's system LSI marketing. "With our custom designed CPU cores and the industry's most advanced LTE modem, consumers using mobile devices with the Exynos 8 Octa will experience a new level of mobile computing."