Samsung manufactures Qualcomm’s current flagship SoC, the 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Receiving such a large order from Qualcomm was a significant victory for Samsung, but it may be a fleeting one.
This is due to a recent report by The Elec, a Korean tech blog, that Samsung has lost its contract with Qualcomm to produce Snapdragon chips. This is because Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chips have a low yield. The rate is only 35%, which means that only 35 out of every 100 chips produced are adequate.
This is insufficient for Qualcomm, who is reportedly shifting orders back to TSMC, its long-standing chip manufacturing partner in the past.
TSMC appears to have a much higher yield rate for 4nm chips, at 70%, which is twice as much as Samsung.
It isn’t just Qualcomm. Nvidia is also abandoning plans to manufacture its 7nm graphics chip with Samsung, which was originally planned to be done with the South Korean company.
Samsung is notorious for its overheating Exynos chips, and now the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is being chastised for being an overheating chip as well. This is unlikely to be a coincidental occurrence.
This speculation, however, will be proven only if TSMC’s version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 heats up less than the Samsung counterpart.
There are also rumors of a Plus version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 arriving in 2022 earlier than usual. According to reports, we will see it in the second quarter of 2022.
To read our blog on “Samsung is set to reveal foldable phones just before Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022,” click here.
