Qualcomm’s chips power almost everything that happens in our mobile lives. They’re on a yearly update cycle, with their next premium processor – the Snapdragon 865 – due to enter manufacturing soon. Industry sources are saying that it’ll be made in Samsung’s chip foundries.
Qualcomm generally contracts others to make their chips, with Samsung famously winning favour a few years ago over the company’s traditional choice, TSMC.
That flipped with the advent of 7nm manufacturing, with the Snapdragon 855 again made by TSMC, but the pendulum has swung back to Samsung for the next generation.
There’s a certain irony in this because Samsung also makes their own Exynos processors and prefers to use them in their own products, but the company’s made Snapdragon processors for Qualcomm before and is clearly anxious to do so again – it’ll be great for their bottom line.
The information comes from a Korean site, TheElec, citing industry sources. Production should begin in December and ramp up for February availability, just in time to see the new processors arrive in phones at Mobile World Congress 2020.
