Qualcomm Considers Dual-Source Strategy with TSMC and Samsung for Chip Production
TapTechNews June 5th news, in February this year, @Tech_Reve once broke the news that this year's flagship chips such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will all be based on TSMC's 3-nanometer process, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 to be launched next year will be produced by both TSMC and Samsung Electronics.
At a media conference held yesterday at Computex Taipei, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in response to a reporter's question about the 'risk of relying on TSMC to produce smartphone chips' that he is considering implementing a dual-source production strategy for TSMC and Samsung Electronics.
Amon said, 'The current top priority is to focus on TSMC's foundry production, but having one company handle both aspects may require tremendous effort.' He welcomes continued cooperation with TSMC and Samsung Electronics and says he will continue to support this approach.
As we all know, the first-generation Snapdragon 8 chip was originally manufactured by Samsung Electronics, but later switched to TSMC due to problems such as overheating. However, with the rapid increase in demand for the just-released Snapdragon XElite chip, Qualcomm seems to have to consider cooperating with Samsung again.
Furthermore, Qualcomm also expresses appreciation for Samsung Electronics' next-generation 2-nanometer process and is considering reallocating capacity to diversify its manufacturing process.
@Tech_Reve once broke the news that Qualcomm plans to continue to have TSMC produce the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip (N3E), while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 for Galaxy chip for the Galaxy S26 series phones will use Samsung's SF2P process.
TapTechNews note: Compared to SF3, the SF2 process can improve power efficiency by 25% at the same frequency and complexity, increase performance by 12% at the same power and complexity, and reduce area by 5% at the same performance and complexity.
To make the SF2 process more competitive, Samsung will also provide a series of advanced IP portfolios for this process, including LPDDR5x, HBM3P, PCIe Gen6, and 112G SerDes, etc.
And SF2P is further optimized for high-performance computing (HPC) based on the SF2 process, and it is expected that there will be greater improvements in performance.