Samsung Foundry Loses Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Contract to TSMC
Samsung Foundry was expected to build the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, but due to its low yields of only 35%, Qualcomm switched to TSMC for the manufacturing of the chipset. TSMC’s yield for its 4nm process node was 70% at the time. However, Qualcomm stuck with Samsung Foundry for its current top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Application Processor (AP).
Qualcomm’s Next New Product Unveiling on March 17th, 2023
Qualcomm has announced the date of its next new product unveiling on China’s Weibo social media site, which is March 17th, 2023. According to SamMobile, at least one of the new chips to be introduced will be the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1, the sequel to last year’s premium mid-range Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 SoC.
Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 to be Manufactured by TSMC
The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 will be manufactured by TSMC using its 4nm node, unlike the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, which was built by Samsung Foundry. Qualcomm has alternated between using TSMC and Samsung Foundry over the years, but TSMC’s chips have been more energy-efficient, and the company has had higher yields.
Leaked Benchmark Test for Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1
The Snapdragon 7+ Gen 1 is rumored to be equipped with 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 premium mid-range smartphones will soon be very fast.
