Samsung Foundry has been discovering it tough to compete with TSMC. A number of the world’s main chip designers are choosing the latter to get their chips fabricated. Which means that Samsung loses out on billions of {dollars} in enterprise, regardless of having invested important sums in its foundry to offer manufacturing capability for superior chips.
Qualcomm, which has beforehand used Samsung Foundry for its chips, was initially rumored to separate orders for its newest cellular chipset between TSMC and Samsung. That is not the case, although. Qualcomm has confirmed that the 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is fabricated solely at TSMC.
Samsung Foundry’s yield troubles are nothing new
That is hardly shocking as this chipset’s predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, was additionally fabricated at TSMC. Experiences of Samsung battling yields on the superior course of nodes are nothing new, and maybe the problems are important sufficient that firms like Qualcomm are deciding to forego the potential advantages of dual-sourcing and put all their eggs in TSMC’s basket.
If some rumors are believed, issues are even worse than anticipated. 3nm yields at Samsung Foundry are reportedly so low that the cellular division has to surrender on its plans of utilizing the Exynos 2500 in some variants of the Galaxy S25 sequence and probably go Snapdragon 8 Elite just for the whole Galaxy S25 sequence due early subsequent yr.
If yields are so low that Samsung cannot make sufficient of its personal chipsets for its personal flagship smartphone lineup, it is hardly a vote of confidence for an organization like Qualcomm that gives chipsets that almost all Android flagships use to belief the manufacturing of their key product to Samsung.
Disclaimer: Qualcomm is internet hosting a big group of worldwide media for the Snapdragon Summit 2024 from October 21-23 in Hawaii, together with SamMobile. All opinions and analyses stay our personal with Qualcomm receiving no advance preview or exercising any management over our protection.
