Qualcomm could move part of production Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to Samsung's TSMC - PhoneArena

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Almost a week ago, we told you that Qualcomm confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the new name for its flagship chipset, will be made by Samsung using its 4nm process node. In the past, Qualcomm has employed both Samsung and TSMC to produce its Snapdragon access points. For example, the 2017 Snapdragon 835 SoC was manufactured by Samsung using its 10nm FinFET process node and contained 3 billion transistors.

Qualcomm could move part of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 production to Samsung’s TSMC

The Snapdragon 845 SoC, released in 2018, was built by Samsung uses its 10nm FinFET process node. In 2019, Qualcomm returned to TSMC which used its 7nm process node to build the Snapdragon 855 and Snapdragon 855+ which both contained 6.7 billion transistors inside.

Qualcomm could use TSMC to build part of its flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset

The 2020 Snapdragon 865 and 865+ were manufactured using TSMC’s second-generation 7nm process and were equipped with 10.3 billion transistors. This year, for the first 5nm Snapdragon chips, Qualcomm returned to Samsung for the Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 888+. Each chip contains 10 billion transistors. For next year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Samsung is expected to use its 4nm process node to manufacture the chips.

But according to SamMobile, there could be a change in the plans. According to today’s report, Qualcomm is not happy with the low yields provided by Samsung’s 4nm manufacturing facilities. As a result, Qualcomm could, if not satisfied, choose to move part of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 production to TSMC.

TSMC is the world’s largest independent foundry and manufactures chips for factory-less chip designers like Apple, MediaTek, AMD, NVIDIA, and others. It could also produce 3nm chips for Intel which has its own foundry but is unable to supply 3nm chips at this stage.

Are there any notable differences between chips built by TSMC and those assembled by Samsung? Some industry experts agree that TSMC’s chip manufacturing process is superior to Samsung’s in terms of size and power efficiency. If Qualcomm decides to split production of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, some devices could show performance and / or power efficiency differences with other devices, even though they both use the same chipset.

Apple has previously used TSMC and Samsung to produce the A9 chip for the iPhone 6s series

Always, Apple said the difference in battery life produced by the two variants of the A9 was no more than 2% to 3%. Consumer Reports did his usual neutral tests and found the difference to be less than 2%. Others conducted their own experiments and found that the TSMC chip offered a noticeable improvement in battery life over the Sansung variant.

Apple used A9 chips from TSMC and Samsung with iPhone 6s - Qualcomm could move part of production from Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to TSMC from Samsung

Apple used TSMC and Samsung’s A9 chips with the iPhone 6s

At the time, Chipworks said, “For Apple to bother to source duplicate for a custom-designed part and launch on day one with both parts, that suggests major supply issues. For cost and power reasons, there is little reason to run a larger die, unless the smaller die was not available at the right volumes. “

Now it looks like Qualcomm is in a similar situation although unlike Apple’s #chipgate both foundries will be using a similar process node. The 4nm process will also be used by Samsung on its local Exynos 2200. So if Sammy’s foundry unit is having performance issues with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, there’s a good chance the Exynos 2200 is having the same issue.

If that turns out to be the case, the Samsung Galaxy S22 series might become hard to find. And don’t forget that Samsung aims to topple TSMC at the top of the global foundry market by 2030. However, first of all. Samsung needs to improve the returns it gets with its 4nm process node, otherwise TSMC could get business it didn’t expect to receive.