Samsung has posted a teaser video on social media today, confirming the launch of its much anticipated new Exynos chipset. Although not specified, this will be the Exynos 2100, the firm's biggest silicon release in several years, and the beating heart of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S21 series in most regions outside the US.

The chip is due to launch on the 12th January 2021, which by no coincidence is two days before the Samsung Galaxy S21 phone is revealed. The move shows some serious confidence from Samsung. After the poor reception of the Exynos 990, which powered the Samsung Galaxy S20 range, yet lagged behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 in every respect, the South Korean firm will be looking to the S21 to not only preserve its reputation for mobile devices but simultaneously revive its reputation as a chip-maker.

If the rumored specs, spotted by our friends at WinFuture, are to be believed (and they usually are), they may just get away with it. It's said to feature an octa-core CPU with an ultra-high performance core clocking in at 2.9GHz (possibly ARM's new Cortex-X1 microarchitecture), flanked by three more high-end cores at 2.8GHz (ARM's Cortex-A78?) and four smaller cores running at 2.4GHz. It'll include a 5G modem as standard. GPU comes from ARM's Mali-G78 GPU. Samsung has a multi-year deal with AMD for GPUs, due to belatedly kick in this year, making it likely that this is one of the last flagships to run purely on Mali.

It's not currently known whether the Exynos 2100 will be fabbed at 5nm, like the recently released Exynos 1080, or will stick to the more established 7nm format, which offers the company higher yields for an in-demand SoC. The key thing, however, is how the Exynos 2100 will compare to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, which will power the device in North American markets. Samsung has always maintained that its chips are on par with Qualcomm's, but user experience has repeatedly taught us otherwise. If the Exynos 2100 falls a long way short of the Snapdragon 888, it could be curtains for Samsung as a flagship silicon vendor.