In 2017, reports from South Korea stated that Qualcomm had found a new partner in the Taiwanese Semiconductor manufacturing company (TSMC) for its future 7nm SoC.
Earlier, Samsung had produced Snapdragon 845 for Qualcomm using the 10nm process but last year, it was not able to secure orders for the 7nm process as Qualcomm approached TSMC for the job. TSMC is responsible for the current Snapdragon 855 chipsets being used in all flagships.
However, Qualcomm is shifting from TSMC to Samsung again for the next generation 7nm chipset that will be released, called Snapdragon 865.
Qualcomm’s Reasons
Qualcomm believes that Samsung’s 7nm EUV process is more competitive and efficient as compared to TSMC’s 7nm EUV process, hence it decided to shift. In April this year, Samsung started shipping out its new chipsets based on 7 nm EUV process which will be used in its upcoming flagship Galaxy Note 10.
Production
Both companies are in the negotiation phase at the moment. According to the reports, the negotiations are reaching their final phase and Samsung will start the production by the end of this year. Qualcomm is expected to launch the 2nd generation 7 nm Snapdragon 865 by 2020.
Apart from Qualcomm, NVIDIA, IBM and some other OEMs are also expected to use Samsung’s 7nm EUV fab for their own chips.
