Qualcomm may be preparing to bring some of its most important Snapdragon chips back to Samsung’s foundry.
For the past few years, Samsung’s chip manufacturing arm has struggled to convince major clients to trust it with fab designs. This was largely because of yield problems and performance concerns, which pushed companies like Qualcomm toward TSMC. The latter, as a result, became the default choice for manufacturing smartphone processors for almost all big giants, including Apple, Qualcomm, and Google.
But Samsung’s success in the 2-nanometer process is shifting that narrative. According to reports from South Korea, Qualcomm is now in active talks with Samsung to manufacture a future Snapdragon chipset using Samsung’s second-generation 2nm process, known as SF2P.
Qualcomm confirms talks with Samsung for 2nm SoC
In fact, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon confirmed during CES 2026 that discussions between the two companies are moving forward.
Amon said, “Among various foundry companies, we started discussions with Samsung Electronics first on contract manufacturing using the latest 2nm process.”
While Qualcomm hasn’t publicly named the chip involved, we can guess that the business might involve next-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 processors.
Qualcomm has relied heavily on TSMC for its high-end Snapdragon chips in recent years, largely due to concerns around Samsung’s consistency at smaller process nodes.
If Qualcomm is now willing to bet on Samsung for 2nm production, it suggests Samsung has achieved maturity, power efficiency, and yields in its chip manufacturing.
Samsung has already announced that it will mass-produce 2nm chips ahead of its rivals, starting with its own Exynos 2600 processor, which is expected to power the Galaxy S26 lineup.
Beyond internal use, the company has reportedly attracted interest from several high-profile customers. Tesla has signed on, and AMD and Google are rumored to be exploring similar paths.
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