Qualcomm’s CEO Cristiano Amon made some comments about the company being in talks with Samsung to produce its 2nm chips, although Samsung has since declined to comment on the matter.
Either way, this is an interesting turn of events given that Samsung’s foundry isn’t doing all that well. The last time Samsung produced Qualcomm-designed chips was in 2022, when the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 came out, but it was met with a lot of criticism for its thermal issues. Moreover, the Korean tech giant’s foundry didn’t meet Qualcomm’s requirements in terms of yield, so the US chip designer turned to TSMC.
Now, Qualcomm itself has initiated talks with Samsung to take over the 2nm chip manufacturing for Qualcomm. In fact, people familiar with the matter suggest that Qualcomm is already done with the chip design and the company is ready to start production.
Nothing is etched in stone yet, but it appears that Samsung is trying to turn the ship around. The head of Samsung’s chip division is tasked with the hard task of making Samsung’s foundry business profitable again, and recent supply agreements with some customers have improved the outlook. Most recently, Tesla struck a deal with Samsung for the production of high-end chips for AI applications.
It’s still unclear whether Samsung will be responsible for the production of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips or if the two companies have something else in mind.
Larisa Schroeder
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