TSMC might still be basking in the glow of its 3nm ‘N3P’ process, but the Korean firm appears determined not to let the Taiwanese giant hog all the glory. According to New Daily Economy, Samsung handed the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 sample to Qualcomm after it passed the company’s internal quality checks.
While this looks like progress, it doesn’t mean Qualcomm will immediately hand Samsung the keys to full-scale production. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is Qualcomm’s flagship silicon, and that means brutal rounds of testing are ahead, including power efficiency, thermal behaviour, reliability, and yield. Only after those hurdles are cleared will Samsung move to trial production, a phase it reportedly completed months ago for its in-house Exynos 2600.
Even so, the road is likely to be long and painful. Trial production can drag on for six months to a year, and if Qualcomm spots anything it doesn’t like, Samsung can kiss the contract goodbye.
If the tests go well, it could open the door to a long-awaited dual-sourcing setup, with Qualcomm splitting orders between TSMC and Samsung for the first time in years. That would be a lifeline for the Korean outfit, since Qualcomm and MediaTek have been forced to pay TSMC about 24 per cent more for wafer production of their latest chips, pushing up the cost of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500.
Things are set to get worse next year when TSMC’s 2nm N2 wafers start shipping, with reports suggesting each wafer could cost $30,000 (€27,700). Those rising costs will inevitably find their way into the final price of consumer gear.
An unnamed industry insider suggested Samsung’s biggest headache wasn’t its technology but its yields and scheduling problems. The company’s 2nm GAA process could be a technical marvel, but with reported yields hovering around 50 per cent for the Exynos 2600, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
“The fault was never with Samsung’s core technology, but with yields and schedule management,” the insider said. If the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 evaluation pans out, they believe “the competitive landscape in 2nm foundry technology could become far more dynamic than it is today.”
For now, Samsung’s latest effort looks like a high-stakes audition for Qualcomm’s favour, with the prize being a shot at breaking TSMC’s near-total grip on advanced chip manufacturing.
