Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 and MediaTek Dimensity 9400 to Compete in 2024 with TSMC's 3-nm Process
TapTechNews July 9th news, according to UDN reports, the two flagship chips, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 and MediaTek Dimensity 9400, will compete on the same stage in the fourth quarter of 2024. Both will adopt TSMC's 3-nanometer process and have already entered the tape-out stage.
Dimensity 9400 Chip
Previous news said that the Dimensity 9400 will adopt the all-big-core design of Cortex-X5, Cortex-X4 and Cortex-A7xx.
Relevant revelations did not disclose the specific CPU architecture, but if it is similar to Dimensity 9300, it may be one Cortex-X5 super-large core, three Cortex-X4 large cores and four Cortex-A730 large cores.
The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chip will be first equipped on the vivo X200Pro phone. This chip is manufactured using TSMC's 3-nanometer process and is expected to debut in October this year, becoming the strongest competitor of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 chip.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 Chip
Qualcomm plans to use TSMC's 3-nanometer N3E process in the fourth-generation Snapdragon 8 processor. At the same time, the Oryon self-developed core replaces the ARM CPU core used before, which leads the company to need to increase the product price to recover the relevant costs.
Previous news said that the price of the Snapdragon 8 Gen4 processor will increase by 25%-30% to $220-$240 (TapTechNews note: currently about 1602-1748 RMB), while the price of the third-generation Snapdragon 8 processor is $190-$200 (currently about 1384-1457 RMB).
TSMC 3-nanometer Orders Are in High Demand
TapTechNews reported in June this year that Apple, Qualcomm, NVIDIA and AMD have divided up the production capacity of TSMC's 3-nanometer series process, resulting in other manufacturers queuing up to bid, and currently the relevant orders have been queued up to 2026.
TSMC's 3-nanometer series process includes N3, N3E, N3P, N3X and N3A, etc. TSMC started mass production of N3E process in the fourth quarter of last year, mainly for AI accelerator cards, high-end smartphones, etc.
TSMC plans to mass produce N3P in the second half of this year and is expected to be widely used in mobile phones, consumer products, base stations and other products in 2026; N3X and N3A are customized for high-speed computing and automotive customers.
TSMC plans to build 7 new factories in 2024, and this year's 3-nanometer production capacity will reach four times that of last year, but it may still not be able to meet the market demand.