In the world of processors and chips, there are two essential players: the designer and the manufacturer. If the designer is going to develop the features and components of the chip, it is the manufacturer – often referred to as the founder – who will be in charge of applying the specifications and supplying those processors.
Only there aren’t hundreds of founders in the market. Taiwanese TSMC rose among the most important and now supplies chips from AMD, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Apple, or Huawei. However, one of its main competitors is none other than Korean Samsung. Designer of its own Exynos chips, the manufacturer is also one of the founders and can manufacture them in-house.
Also, according to information from the famous leaker Ice Universe, generally well informed about Samsung’s project, the Korean manufacturer would keep another customer with Qualcomm. In fact, the future Snapdragon 895 chip would be manufactured not by TSMC but by Samsung.
To do this, the Korean founder would use a 4 nm engraving process – as a reminder, the snapdragon 888 is engraved in 5 nm – to provide even better power management. However, according to the Ice Universe, the next iteration of Qualcomm’s processor, the Snapdragon 895+, would return to be manufactured by TSMC, still in 4nm.
As a reminder, the snapdragon 888 and 888+ are already made by Samsung, but previous Qualcomm chips were made by TSMC.
The Chinese leaker does not mention the reasons for this choice of Samsung as the founder of the next generation of Snapdragon chips. However, with the scarcity of components that currently affects the entire high-tech industry, it may be wiser to get from a demanded manufacturer, like Samsung. In fact, for its part, TSMC already has a lot to do in terms of graphics cards, chips for Apple, and, above all, components of the car.
