Samsung Foundry has been attempting very arduous to compete in opposition to TSMC, the undisputed contract chip manufacturing chief, notably on the superior nodes. Tons of of billions of {dollars} are spent yearly by prime chip designers like Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD, and lots of extra to have their chips made at foundries, since they don’t have their very own.
Samsung has been attempting to get a bit of this pie for the longest time however its market share nonetheless pales compared to TSMC, which has taken the majority of orders for the 3nm course of, together with from corporations which have beforehand used Samsung’s fabs. So regardless that the top of Samsung’s cell division TM Roh made an in-person look at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit 2024 final week, it’s arduous to assume he wouldn’t have felt upset at some stage with the foundry enterprise.
Qualcomm has beforehand used Samsung’s foundries to get its chips made. As one of many prime suppliers of flagship cell chips, any fab that will get Qualcomm orders stands to make a boatload of cash, to place it delicately. That boatload has been going TSMC’s approach in recent times amid issues in regards to the competitiveness of Samsung Foundry on superior nodes, notably associated to yields. TSMC shall be making all of Qualcomm’s newly unveiled Snapdragon 8 Elite chips which can energy tens of tens of millions of Android flagship telephones that got here out later this 12 months and properly into subsequent 12 months.
It was rumored for months now that Samsung will use the Exynos 2500 in some variants of the Galaxy S25 sequence. This chip is Samsung’s reply to the Snapdragon 8 Elite and is equally made on the 3nm course of, nonetheless, this chip is being made by Samsung Foundry as a substitute of TSMC. In line with latest reviews, the yields of Samsung Foundry’s 3nm course of are so low that it will probably’t even produce the chip on the quantity that Samsung’s cell division must put them within the tens of millions of Galaxy S25 and S25+ items it’s going to ship.
This has pressured the cell division’s hand and left it with no choice however to go Snapdragon 8 Elite-only for your complete Galaxy S25 sequence, as newer reviews have claimed. The unlucky actuality now could be that Samsung wants Qualcomm for top-of-the-line chipsets just because the foundry can’t convey to life what the semiconductor division creates. This makes Qualcomm a vital companion for the cell division, and TM Roh touring all the way in which to Maui for the Snapdragon Summit to only spend a couple of minutes on stage the place he made no bulletins of substance, reveals that the gesture had extra to do with seeing and being seen on the occasion.
Qualcomm CEO Christiano Amon spoke at size in regards to the firm’s partnerships through the keynote on the primary day, highlighting all the industry-leading work that the corporate does in collaboration with corporations like Microsoft, Meta, and naturally, Samsung. “We love Samsung” have been the precise phrases he used to welcome TM Roh as he walked on stage. Qualcomm has used Samsung Foundry up to now and it will achieve this once more if its necessities have been met. Having no different choice than TSMC to have its chips made isn’t a really perfect situation for Qualcomm both as a result of it will doubtless have little room to barter on pricing, a course of that’s extremely profitable and extremely secretive on this {industry}.
Think about how vital that second might have been for Samsung for Roh to declare proudly on stage on the Snapdragon Summit that Qualcomm’s newest flagship chip, which might be utilized in Samsung’s upcoming flagship cellphone, was made by Samsung Foundry. It could have given extra substance to Roh’s look on the keynote and would have equally signified Samsung’s significance for Qualcomm as properly, past the place it presently stands.
As an alternative with the foundry division dropping the ball, Roh was left with little to work with to focus on all the unimaginable work that the corporate has executed and the way that allows Qualcomm’s merchandise to realize their true potential. So yeah, I’d be upset too.
