Samsung Foundry struggles with yields for 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset
Samsung Foundry was responsible for manufacturing the 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. However, the foundry experienced a problem with its yields, which were only at 35%. This means that only 35% of the chips produced by Samsung Foundry made it through quality control from each silicon wafer. In contrast, TSMC’s yield for its 4nm process node was significantly higher at 70%. As a result, Qualcomm switched from Samsung to TSMC for the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC.
Qualcomm moves to TSMC for Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Application Processor
Qualcomm not only switched to TSMC for its Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 but also for its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Application Processor (AP). While Qualcomm is based in San Diego, it posted the date of its next new product unveiling on China’s Weibo social media site for March 17th, 2023. It is rumored that TSMC will be the foundry to build the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset for Qualcomm.
Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 set to launch using TSMC’s 4nm process node
The upcoming Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 will be rolling off the assembly line at TSMC and will use its 4nm node. Over the years, Qualcomm has alternated between using TSMC and Samsung Foundry, with TSMC’s chips being more energy-efficient and yielding higher.
Rumored features for the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1
The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 is rumored to have a Cortex-X2 high-performance CPU core running at 2.92GHz, three Cortex-A710 performance CPU cores clocked at 2.5GHz, and four Cortex-A510 efficiency CPU cores running at a clock speed of 1.8GHz. A leaked benchmark test for the chip on Geekbench produced a single-core score of 1,232 and a multi-core score of 4,095, indicating that mid-range premium smartphones will soon be faster.
It should be noted that the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 was built by Samsung Foundry using its 4nm process node, while the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 will be produced by TSMC using the same technology. It remains to be seen if Qualcomm will continue its partnership with TSMC for future processors or revert to Samsung Foundry.
