The announcement during the earnings call stated, “We’re also announcing that we extended a multiyear agreement with Samsung relating to Snapdragon platforms for flagship Galaxy smartphone launches starting in 2024. The extended agreement demonstrates the value of Snapdragon 8, our technology leadership, and our successful long-term strategic partnership with Samsung.”
Qualcomm announced that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Samsung to supply it with Snapdragon silicon
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP will be the first to use Qualcomm’s custom CPU cores instead of Arm Holding’s Cortex cores. It is also expected to use a configuration made up of two high-performance “Phoenix” CPU cores and six medium-performance “Phoenix” CPU cores. That means that the chip will not have any low-power Efficiency cores. It also will be produced using TSMC’s second-generation N3E 3nm process node. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could be announced this coming October.
Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 could be dual-sourced with some chips rolling off of TSMC’s assembly lines and others coming from Samsung Foundry. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was originally produced by Samsung Foundry, but issues with poor yields led Qualcomm to switch production to TSMC starting with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and expected to continue through the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. In 2025, we will hear whether Samsung Foundry will get some of this business back.
