Qualcomm gave the contract to manufacture the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chips to Samsung Foundry but an order for the upgraded version of the processor, dubbed Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 was given to TSMC.
Now, a new report coming from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that Qualcomm is giving a contract to TSMC for exclusively manufacturing the next-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip as well as the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 chips.
This is a major blow to Samsung Foundry which had Qualcomm as its most important customer for the advanced chips. With Qualcomm moving to TSMC, the Taiwan-based company will significantly increase its market lead.
While details about the next-generation flagship smartphone processor remain unknown, it likely that the company will stick to the 4nm node process for the upcoming chips, which is the same used in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 series.
Samsung’s issues with the yield is likely one of the major reason Qualcomm decided to switch to TSMC. As per the reports, the yield of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 manufactured by Samsung Foundry is 35%. This means that out of the 100 pieces that are made, only 35 are useful and 65 are defective.
The South Korean giant recently started production of 3nm chips. It uses the Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor architecture for power-efficient and performance-enhanced chips. It is also developing a second-generation 3nm process node that would offer significant improvements across several areas.
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