Samsung’s processor foundries missed one production cycle of the flagship Snapdragon 8-series processor but their new and superior extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has won the hearts of Qualcomm’s management for Snapdragon 865, it seems.
Korean media is
reporting that Samsung is in advanced negotiations with Qualcomm to produce the next-gen Snapdragon 865 system chip with the 7nm EUV method, and production is likely to start towards the end of the year. While Samsung skipped the first 7nm generation that TSMC built Apple’s A12 and the Snapdragon 855 chipset with, it has reportedly been betting on the new production process and the bet has paid off with Nvidia and now Qualcomm as first customers.
Samsung’s second-gen 7nm processors are shaping up as winners
Samsung’s chief of the semiconductor LSI division called the EUV technology “challenging” during a quarterly results press conference, yet mentioned that the company expects to become a leader there. The new lithography equipment helps laying down the minuscule transistors close to each other with less drama and expenses than before.
Chips made with the second-gen 7nm EUV lithography can be produced easier now, with better yields, and with a reduced number of masks needed for production that will make them cheaper to make on average. At the same time, compared with the 10nm chips in the Note 9, the 7nm LPP EUV silicon can be made with a 40% smaller footprint, and either be 20% faster, or with the whopping 50% reduction in power draw.
Since today’s mobile processors are powerful enough, we’d wager to guess that the designers of the future Snapdragons, Exynos or AX Bionic chipsets will opt for a diminished toll on battery life, and the space saved by the EUV method will be utilized for something else in the increasingly crowded smartphone internals.
Snapdragon 865 – to 5G or not to 5G
Unfortunately, the insiders tip that the 7nm EUV Snapdragon 865 will still be produced in two versions – one with a 5G modem, and one without – which most likely means that Qualcomm’s X55 modem still won’t be integrated. Snapdragon 855 that is in current flagship phones needs two extra components tacked on to form a
phone with 5G connectivity, and, even if Snapdragon 865 needs only one – the X55 modem – if it is separate from the processor, we still can’t call it a true 5G-capable chipset.
This processor situation is behind the trend of releasing extra 5G versions of popular phones, like the
S10 5G or
OnePlus 7 Pro 5G, and next year might continue this trend up until the fall when Apple is expected to come out with its first 5G iPhone.
That goes for the Galaxy Note 10 as well, since it is reportedly going to sport a smaller and a larger models, and both of these are reportedly coming with 5G versions as well, for a total of four Notes for some reason. The last speculation on Samsung’s reasons to do this was that the smallish Note 10 is meant for markets like Europe where focus groups have shown that smaller phones are preferable.
Note 10 coming with a new processor
Speaking of the Galaxy Note 10, the other interesting tidbit in the report is reiterating that Samsung has already started production of a new Exynos chipset that will go into the upcoming Note(s), and the reason we say new is that it is apparently made with the 7nm EUV method, making it the second such chip we’ve heard about, after Qualcomm’s current
X50 5G modem.
The
Exynos 9820 that is in the Galaxy S10 trio is made with an 8nm production process, but the Note 10 may be the first phone to launch with an EUV processor and we can’t wait to put it to the testing. The Snapdragon 855 edition will probably still be with the first-gen 7nm process, so a fun comparison between the two awaits us come
Note 10 release time in August.
