When was the last time we read that the business
Was Samsung Foundry Struggling to Make Smartphone SoCs? We remember that something like this had happened in early 2022, when the returns for the application processor 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (AP) reported that of the total percentage of 100 chips that can be produced from silicon wafers, only 35 passed quality control (QC). Even though Samsung Foundry manufactured Qualcomm’s most powerful chipset at the time, it was the last company to pay for the defective chips.
With the poor performance of Samsung Foundry, Qualcomm quickly began talks to switch to rival Taiwan-based foundry TSMC, which at the time was running the 4nm process node at 70% efficiency, which was twice what the Samsung Foundry team was able to achieve. So Qualcomm, not interested in throwing more money around, turned to TSMC to build what it called Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. And it has remained at TSMC ever since. TSMC will also manufacture the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP model.
Starting next year, both TSMC and Samsung are expected to start mass production on the new 2nm node that will use smaller transistors that will allow more of them to fit on a chip. TSMC will showcase Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors that allow the gate to contact the channel on all four sides, reducing current leakage and improving drive current. Samsung Foundry is already using GAA with 3nm production.
But the downside is that Samsung Foundry continues to have performance issues. A source told Business Korea how bad Samsung Foundry’s operations are with 2nm production. “Samsung’s GAA efficiency is around 10-20%, which is insufficient for both orders and mass production,” the source said. Including its 3nm production, Samsung Foundry has an efficiency of less than 50% according to the source, while TSMC has an efficiency of 60%-70%.
The difference in performance allowed TSMC to capture 62.3% of the global foundry market compared to Samsung Foundry’s 11.5%. And while Samsung decided to stick with TSMC to build the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP for its flagship Galaxy S25 series, it made that decision at a huge cost. Qualcomm is reportedly charging everything for these chips to use Qualcomm’s custom CPU cores. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could cost 25%-30% more than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which could result in the new AP flagship priced between $237.50 and $260.
It’s understandable that Samsung doesn’t want to pay those prices for the series again Galaxy S26 of 2026 and would like Qualcomm to return Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 production to Samsung Foundry. But for that to happen, Samsung Foundry will have to improve performance in 3nm and 2nm production. And don’t forget, the largest smartphone chipset supplier in the world is MediaTek!
Source: myphone.gr
