Qualcomm has 28nm chips made by UMC and Samsung

Qualcomm has agreed with chip manufacturers Samsung Electronics and United Microelectronics Corp. that they will take on 28nm production of the Snapdragon S4 socs for smartphones, alongside manufacturer TSMC.

Qualcomm’s latest system-on-a-chip or soc for smartphones, the Snapdragon S4, is used in HTC’s One S and some One X models, among others. However, Qualcomm can hardly meet the demand for the S4 socs, mainly because the production capacity it purchased from chip manufacturer TSMC appears to be insufficient. Qualcomm is dependent on other manufacturers because it has no facilities of its own to produce chips: Qualcomm is a fabless semiconductor company.

The Snapdragon S4 socs are manufactured at TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer from Taiwan, but that company cannot supply enough chips. Qualcomm has therefore entered into agreements with the Taiwanese-based United Microelectronics Corp of UMC and the South Korean Samsung Electronics, so that reports Taiwan Economic News. Both companies would produce the 28nm SOCs and baseband chips for Qualcomm.

UMC would produce three to five thousand wafers per month for Qualcomm, about twenty to thirty-three percent of TSMC’s output. How many wafers and chips will roll out of the Samsung factories was not disclosed. The delivery of the Snapdragon socs would take place from the fourth quarter. By then, the socs should also be used in Windows 8 RT tablets.