Qualcomm is reportedly thinking of a “dual-sourcing production strategy” for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset. The two companies will be Samsung Electronics and TSMC. According to Businesskorea, during a media briefing held at the W Hotel in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 4th, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon shared the information in response to a question.
Qualcomm is considering a dual-sourcing strategy important for its business
The question was about the risk of relying solely on a single manufacturer for all of its chips. He responded that he is thinking of partnering with Samsung alongside TSMC for its chip fabrication. Notably, the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be manufactured entirely by TSMC. However, changes is the strategy may take place starting with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. “The current focus must be on the foundry production at TSMC,” he confirmed.
Reportedly, the possibility of a dual-sourcing strategy for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 has been a recurring topic recently. On top of that, Qualcomm internally appreciates Samsung’s 2nm SF2 process. The node is expected to offer significant improvements in both performance and power efficiency.
Previous collaboration with Samsung Foundry wasn’t successful
Qualcomm has already tried collaborating with Samsung for its chip fabrication (the Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1). However, both the chips failed to meet everyone’s expectations regarding a stable performance. Due to the overheating issues with the two chips, Qualcomm had to move back to TSMC starting with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which was adopted by the Galaxy Z Fold 4. The refreshed version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 with TSMC’s 4nm process node showed significant improvement when it comes to power efficiency and sustained performance.
On the other hand, Samsung has managed to significantly improve the power efficiency of its last two generations of Exynos chips (Exynos 220 and Exynos 2400) that are also fabricated by Samsung Foundry. The Exynos 2400 version of the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus does not show a performance gap nearly as wide as it used to be a couple of years ago. That being said, we will have to wait to see how successful Samsung will be with its 3nm process, and more importantly, with the 2nm and smaller nodes that might be used to fabricate future Snapdragon chips.
Lastly, the CEO mentioned the dual-sourcing strategy but did not reveal how they plan to implement it. Samsung offers different chipsets in its flagships based on regions. Will Qualcomm’s dual-sourcing strategy be similar? Well, the only thing that’s clear at this point is that Qualcomm is considering the new partnership with Samsung as a backup and keeps the focus on the collaboration with TSMC. We will share more information as they become available.
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