Qualcomm Shifts Chip Manufacturing From Samsung to TSMC

Samsung has a problem: the production of high-end processors for mobile devices, which took a lot of effort, is not working properly – and has been for years. The first customers, therefore, draw conclusions and migrate. For Qualcomm, it’s back to TSMC, Samsung’s biggest competitor. The Korean Magazine the Elec reports that Samsung still has huge problems making chips with the latest manufacturing technologies.

The yield in the production of chips with a structure width of four nanometers should only be around 35 percent. At TSMC, production on a 4nm scale is not yet at the usual high level, but the efficiency is said to be around 70 percent, twice as high as at Samsung.

Qualcomm’s best SoCs By TSMC Soon

The bad experiences with Samsung’s semiconductor division are now having serious consequences because with Qualcomm and Nvidia you are likely to lose important customers. Qualcomm is switching back to TSMC with the soon-to-be updated Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 “Plus”, which internally carries the model number SM8475, probably mainly because they want to ensure better availability of the high-end platform. Production takes place in TSMC’s new 4nm process.

Qualcomm reportedly no longer wants Samsung to produce the next generation of its high-end SoCs, which could likely begin release by the end of the year with the “Snapdragon 8 Gen 2,” internally dubbed SM8550. Instead, the mobile SoC specialist is likely to rely on TSMC in this case as well. Production will then probably take place on a scale of 3 nanometers. Meanwhile, there would be problems in other respects with Samsung’s development of advanced semiconductor manufacturing technologies. Samsung is said to have collected far fewer patents than TSMC regarding the new gate-all-around transistors used in 3nm chips.