With Samsung Foundry’s poor yield figure, Qualcomm quickly entered into talks to switch to rival foundry TSMC. The Taiwan-based foundry was running its 4nm process node with a 70% yield which was twice what Samsung Foundry was able to achieve. So Qualcomm, not interested in throwing away more money, switched to TSMC to build what was called the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. And it has stayed with TSMC ever since. TSMC will manufacture the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP.
Next year, both TSMC and Samsung are expected to start mass production at the new 2nm node that will use smaller transistors allowing more of them to fit insider a chip. TSMC will introduce its Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors that allow the gate to come into contact with the channel on all four sides reducing current leaks and improving the drive current. Samsung Foundry already uses GAA with its 3nm production.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be built by TSMC using its 3nm node. | Image credit-Qualcomm
If Samsung Foundry can’t improve its yields and TSMC gets the contract to build the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, Samsung just might take MediaTek up on its offer.