Rumor: Qualcomm wants to have Snapdragon 820 produced by Samsung

Qualcomm would have its Snapdragon 820-soc produced by Samsung. Until now, TSMC produced all Snapdragons. With the move, Qualcomm could make the 820 at 14nm, while at the same time wanting to convince the Samsung mobile branch to opt for Snapdragon-socs again.

The contracts do not appear to have been signed yet, but despite this, tech site Recode has heard from various unnamed sources that Qualcomm wants to choose Samsung for the production of the Snapdragon 820. It would be the second major customer that would prefer Samsung over TSMC. Apple would also like to have its A9 only made by Samsung.

With the step, Qualcomm wants to be able to have its Snapdragon 820 made at 14nm. Samsung uses the 14nm process for its Exynos 7420, the soc from the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. A smaller process has shorter connections and is therefore more economical than the 20nm on which TSMC can produce socs. TSMC is working on a 16nm process, but Recode explicitly mentions that it could only make the 820 at 20nm.

In addition to the technical reason, Qualcomm also has a commercial reason to look at Samsung. It lost a major customer in the South Korean company with the Galaxy S6 and by moving production to Samsung, the chip designer wants to convince the South Korean conglomerate to choose Qualcomm again with the Galaxy S7.

Unlike the current Snapdragon 810, the Snapdragon 820 again has processor cores based on a microarchitecture developed by Qualcomm itself. The 810 uses ARM’s Cortex A57 and A53 cores. Qualcomm’s own core is called Kryo. The Snapdragon 820 will go to manufacturers in the second half of this year and should therefore be in smartphones next year.