According to information from leaker Ice Universe, Samsung would manufacture the future Snapdragon 895, but Qualcomm would again switch to TSMC for the Snapdragon 895+.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, for illustration // Source: Qualcomm

In the world of processors and chips, there are two essential players: the designer and the manufacturer. If the designer is going to develop the characteristics and the components of the chip, it is the manufacturer – who is often called the founder – who will be in charge of applying the specifications and supplying these processors.

Only, cross-country skiers, there aren't hundreds of them on the market. The Taiwanese TSMC has also become one of the most important and now supplies chips from AMD, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Apple or Huawei. Nevertheless, one of its main competitors is none other than the Korean Samsung. Designer of its own Exynos chips, the manufacturer is also a founder and can manufacture them itself in-house.

Samsung or TSMC?

In addition, according to information from the Chinese leaker Ice Universe, generally well informed about Samsung's projects, the Korean manufacturer would keep another customer with Qualcomm. Indeed, the future Snapdragon 895 chip would be manufactured not by TSMC, but by Samsung.

To do this, the Korean founder would use a 4 nm engraving process – as a reminder, the Snapdragon 888 is engraved in 5 nm – in order to offer even better energy management. However, still according to Ice Universe, the next iteration of Qualcomm's processor, the Snapdragon 895+, would once again be manufactured by TSMC, still in 4 nm.

As a reminder, the Snapdragon 888 and 888+ are already manufactured by Samsung, but the previous Qualcomm chips were made by TSMC.

To go furtherThe Samsung Galaxy S21 FE would ultimately not be limited to the Snapdragon 888

The Chinese leaker does not mention the reasons for this choice of Samsung as the founder for the next generation of Snapdragon chips. However, with the shortage of components currently affecting the entire high-tech industry, it may be wiser to source from a less popular manufacturer, such as Samsung. Indeed, for its part, TSMC already has a lot to do in terms of graphics cards, chips for Apple and, above all, components for cars.

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