Qualcomm recently released its latest flagship processor, Snapdragon 8 Gen1. The company has officially confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is exclusively manufactured by Samsung. The chip uses Samsung’s 4nm process but there are reports that Samsung’s 4nm process yield is low. Furthermore, recent reports claim that Qualcomm is very dissatisfied with Samsung’s work on this chip. Samsung’s major rival is TSMC and it appears that TSMC’s process is a step ahead.
Unfortunately, Dimensity 9000, Snapdragon 8 Gen1 major rival uses TSMC’s 4nm process. Dimensity 9000 may have a slight edge over the Snapdragon 8 Gen1. Qualcomm will not be pleased with this. The company has always been ahead in the flagship chip market.Ā If Samsung cannot solve this problem, Qualcomm may have to look for alternatives. Of course, TSMC is the only viable alternative in the market.
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Industry insiders claim that TSMCās 4nm process is better than Samsung in terms of size and power consumption. If Qualcomm passes some orders to TSMCās foundry, there may be a gap in performance or power consumption between the TSMC version and the Samsung version. However, Samsung will not want to lose Qualcomm, this will affect the South Korean manufacturer.
Samsung’s goal is to become a semiconductor leader by 2030. If Qualcomm switches to TSMC, it will be more difficult for Samsung to achieve this goal.
Snapdragon 8 Gen1 technical specs
The technical specs of the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is top-notch but its power management may be an issue.Ā The CPU of this chip comes with a three-cluster design (1+3+4) and the main core is an ARM Cortex-X2 core with a 3.0 GHz clock speed. There are also three “supporting” performance cores based on the newer ARM Cortex-A710 standard. Those will run at 2.5 GHz. Finally, we have four efficiency cores that will also sport the new ARM Cortex-A510 standard running at 1.8 GHz.Ā Overall, the new CPU will reduce power consumption by up to 30 percent. That certainly is a significant upgrade.
Furthermore, this new processor comes with anĀ Adreno 730 GPU with a 30% performance boost and up to 25 power-saving thanks to its new architecture. Qualcomm developed three Elite Gaming features, one of which will allow developers to strike a balance between performance and power efficiency.
Furthermore, the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 brings an integrated X65 5G modem. It offers support for both sub-6 and mmWave operations. It can deliver theoretical peak speeds of 10 Gbps. For the first time, it also supports carrier aggregation for the uplink. Local connectivity enjoys Wi-Fi 6 and 6E support, plus improvements to Bluetooth.
