Qualcomm Chooses TSMC's N3E Process for Snapdragon 8 Gen 4

Earlier reports stated that Qualcomm, a leading electronic components manufacturer, planned to collaborate with both TSMC and Samsung, two major foundries, to mass-produce future chipsets, including the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, in order to improve bargaining power and reduce supply chain risks. However, according to the latest report from Wccftech, Qualcomm seems to be leaning towards abandoning Samsung due to its poor yield rate and TSMC's advantage in the N3E process technology. Qualcomm intends to exclusively use TSMC's N3E process for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

It is understood that working with different manufacturers can bring significant benefits to Qualcomm, such as cost savings, increased bargaining power, and reduced reliance on TSMC as the exclusive foundry. Undoubtedly, TSMC's N3E process is costly for Qualcomm, but a tweet from Revegnus suggests that Qualcomm has no other choice. Initially, Qualcomm planned to produce two versions of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, with the Samsung Galaxy series using Samsung's 3GAP process, and the regular version for other non-Samsung smartphones manufactured using TSMC's N3E process. If all Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chips are produced by TSMC, wafer prices could significantly increase, resulting in higher prices for downstream smartphone manufacturers. The reasons behind this rumored change were not disclosed by Revegnus, but it may be related to Samsung's next-generation process.

In the previous quarter's financial report, Samsung updated its 3GAP process, claiming stable yield rates. However, it appears that Samsung's 3GAP process still faces bottlenecks in terms of yield rates. Given that Qualcomm's initial batch of Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chips requires satisfactory yield rates for Qualcomm and Samsung to maintain their future partnership, the situation seems to be similar to when Qualcomm transferred Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to TSMC. TSMC's N3E process has significant advantages, as the Arm Cortex-X4 core was developed using this process. However, it cannot be confirmed whether TSMC has reached an exclusive agreement with Qualcomm for N3E production after providing samples. If Samsung can resolve the yield rate issue, we might still see both versions of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, but it remains to be seen.