The recent announcement of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 was for the version produced under TSMC’s 3nm ‘N3P’ process, but that does not mean Samsung is sitting idly by, as a new report states that a flagship chipset sample made on the 2nm GAA process was recently sent for evaluation. Given that the Korean giant had recently commenced mass production of the Exynos 2600, this latest development could be the long break the company hoped for.
Samsung’s recent move could materialize into a dual-sourcing approach from Qualcomm, but there are a ton of evaluations required for this Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 sample
Details from New Daily Economy spotted by @Jukanlosreve mention Samsung’s latest milestone, with the report stating that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 sample was only provided to Qualcomm after ‘meeting internal quality standards.’ While this is a positive development, this step does not entirely mean that Samsung will receive the green light to begin full-scale production.
What it does mean is that several requirements will need to be fulfilled first. Given that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is Qualcomm’s top-end silicon, the company will likely perform rigorous testing that includes power efficiency, performance, heat generation, yield, and reliability. After all of these tests are cleared, Samsung will move to trial production, a stage it supposedly completed for the Exynos 2600 months ago.
Unfortunately, given that Qualcomm can potentially become Samsung’s long-term customer, the road will be long and painful for the Korean foundry, as it can take up to six months to a year for the trial production period to conclude. At any time, if Qualcomm is dissatisfied with the sample quality, it will cancel all possible production contracts with Samsung.
Assuming the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 meets Qualcomm’s requirements, we could see a dual-sourcing partnership materialize for the first time in years, and looking at the current circumstances, adding more suppliers was absolutely necessary. For one thing, both Qualcomm and MediaTek reportedly paid TSMC up to a 24 percent higher sum for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500, making both SoCs pricier than their immediate predecessors.
Next year will not be any different, and with TSMC’s 2nm N2 wafers reportedly costing $30,000 per unit, the situation will become even more financially taxing for its customers, eventually forcing them to jack up the prices of its products.
A source close to the industry says that Samsung was always criticized for its yields, never for its ‘core technology’
An unnamed industry insider has discussed why Samsung failed to acquire customers while TSMC raced to seize the lion’s share of the market. We reported recently that even with the company currently mass producing the Exynos 2600, yields are only at 50 percent, when ideally, they should be at 70 percent.
This indicates that the fault was never with Samsung’s core technology, but with yields and schedule management. Qualcomm receiving the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 sample on the 2nm GAA technology is the first major test for Samsung. If the latter is successful, the insider states that ‘the competitive landscape in 2nm foundry technology could become far more dynamic than it is today.’
News Source: New Daily Economy
Follow Wccftech on Google or add us as a preferred source, to get our news coverage and reviews in your feeds.
Source link
