Daily Authority: 🔧 Google Tensor 2 details

✨ Good morning! Welcome to June!

Google Tensor 2 goes to Samsung

One of the big changes with the Pixel 6 series was Google moving to its own chip in the Tensor SoC, and the next-gen chip in the Pixel 7 series is pretty hotly anticipated.

• In case you want to catch up on the Tensor, here’s everything you need to know about it.
• In brief: Google and Samsung LSI cooperated on the Tensor chip design, and Samsung fabbed it as well.
• Somewhat naturally, the chip shared many of the Exynos 2100’s underpinnings, such as features like power management and clock management architecture, which were said to be using the Exynos core designs.
• Anyway, the headline thing to know is that Google worked closely with Samsung both in the design and manufacture of the silicon, while accommodating Google’s own Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which Google worked on itself.

And, it’s happening again:

• News out of Korean media via DDaily.co.kr indicates that Samsung has again won the order for Google’s next-generation smartphone AP second-generation Tensor chip heading to the Pixel 7.
• Samsung Electronics will mass-produce Google’s Pixel 7 series chip from June.
• Quote from machine translation: “The second-generation Tensor is said to be made in Samsung Electronics’ 4nm process. In the post process, panel level package (PLP) technology is introduced. PLP is a packaging technique in which chips cut from a wafer are placed on a rectangular panel. It is possible to minimize the discarded edge, thereby reducing cost and improving productivity.”
• (Given this, what could the very early Pixel 7 listing on eBay mean? What chip is in that, assuming it’s true? Possibly a test manufactured CPU, or the original Tensor chip with the design and build being tested, not the processor yet. Who knows.)

Recap:

• The big details: second-generation SoC built on a 4-nanometer process (an improvement on 5nm today), and use of PLP which may save on some costs, and June production start time.
• One question I see enthusiasts asking is what modem it’ll use.
• The Tensor used Samsung’s own Exynos Modem 5123 as an external chip (as in, not integrated into the SoC.)
• Most enthusiasts would prefer a Qualcomm modem, especially one integrated into the SoC to improve efficiency. And Qualcomm modems are considered better, featuring better signal strength, fewer dropouts or patchy connections, and less battery drain than Exynos variants. Differences seem to vary, but reports include things like field tests of the Pixel 6 Pro showing around half of the practical speeds of Qualcomm devices such as an iPhone. (By the way, remember when Qualcomm got mad about all this SoC stuff on Twitter?)
• Reports are that Google/Samsung will use a new Exynos Modem 5300, which we haven’t seen announced yet, so it’s unclear how much of a step the Tensor 2 will take, but it’ll be a big point of interest for enthusiasts.

Roundup

📳 Google out-leaked the leakers at I/O: Here’s what Evan Blass (evleaks) and Steve Hemmerstoffer (OnLeaks) think. (Android Authority).

🍎 The Apple Watch might be getting a camera? A new patent filed, and one of the original inventors of the Apple Watch’s digital crown, Tyler S. Bushnell, is included in the patent listing (Gizmodo).

📺 Er: Netflix is testing a password sharing crackdown but it seems like it’s not going well, confusing people in test markets: confusing messaging, or no repercussions (yet) for ignoring the new rules (Rest of World).

Quotes:

• Dolphins get to know their friends by tasting their pee, a new study finds. By sampling sips of each other’s urine, dolphins demonstrated a type of social recognition that begins with an exchange of whistles that are unique to specific individuals — much like human names. 
• By tasting each other’s urine and recognizing the source, the dolphins showed that they could keep track of dolphin identities using two types of sensory input. This means the animals could create and store a mental concept of other dolphins, according to the new study.
• The findings were published on May 18 in the journal Science Advances.
• It’s kinda wholesome, but it seems to prove that dolphins a) have specific whistles or names for their dolphin buddies and b) verify it all with pee.

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor