Comparing the sizes of flagship chipsets: Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei and Apple

There are four major manufacturers of flagship chipsets – Qualcomm (Snapdragon), Samsung (Exynos), Huawei (Kirin) and Apple (A-series). Three of those tend to be used in the respective companies' own flagships. Apple certainly doesn’t want to share while Samsung and Huawei rarely find outside customers.

We often talk about the power usage of a chipset – it’s important for the battery budget. Fabbing the chip at lower nanometers helps with that, but also balances the other important sheet. The price of a chip (patent costs aside) is proportional to its size.

This makes it tricky to find the right balance between CPU power, graphics performance and additional features (image processors, AI accelerators and so on).

For the curious, Tech Insights has annotated photos of the chipset dies of the four major players. A Snapdragon 845 is 25% smaller than an Exynos 9810. The Apple A11 Bionic is even smaller than the Snapdragon, but is the only one with without a modem on board. The Kirin is somewhere in between.

Here’s a scale image of the four chipsets (click for a closer look):

And here is a table with the sizes (note that the Snapdragon 845 size is estimated):

To see if each company got its money's worth, here is how these chipsets perform in CPU and GPU tasks. (note: an Xperia XZ2 is standing in for the S845-powered Galaxy S9+)

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  10215
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  8883
• Sony Xperia XZ2
  8466
• Huawei Mate 10
  6625

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  4256
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  3771
• Sony Xperia XZ2
  2454
• Huawei Mate 10
  1882

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XZ2
  55
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  47
• Apple iPhone X
  44
• Huawei Mate 10
  38

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone X
  1854
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  1481
• Sony Xperia XZ2
  1176
• Huawei Mate 10
  1142

Source | Via