Rumor: Samsung to produce processors for Qualcomm

Qualcomm now has its processors produced by Samsung instead of TSMC, it is rumored. Qualcomm is said to have already placed orders with the South Korean company. Qualcomm is one of the largest chip suppliers in the mobile market.

It concerns 14nm processors that will be on the market from next year, according to a Reuters story about the alleged switch. If TSMC loses Qualcomm as a customer, it has a major impact; Qualcomm makes processors for almost all expensive and many midrange smartphones.

It is one of the few remaining major processor makers in the mobile market alongside Apple, MediaTek and Samsung itself. MediaTek and smaller Chinese chipmakers like Rockchip are with TSMC and Global Foundries.

In addition to Qualcomm, Apple would also like to move production to Samsung. Now TSMC is said to still produce a small part of the mobile processors for Apple, but Apple would like to transfer all production to Samsung.

Qualcomm is not only switching from TSMC to Samsung, it also seems to be slowly no longer using its own Krait microarchitecture. The Snapdragon 400 series has moved from Krait to Cortex A7, while the Snapdragon 800 series with the 808 and 810 is moving to Cortex A53 and Cortex A57.