Samsung recently received several orders for its foundry business, including some from IBM, Cisco, Nvidia, and Google. As per the latest report, the company has received a new order from Qualcomm. Samsung will be manufacturing Qualcomm’s mobile application processor (AP), which is also known as System on Chip (SoC), for low-cost 5G smartphones.
The affordable 5G processor from Qualcomm could be the upcoming Snapdragon 4-series 5G mobile platform. According to Qualcomm, it’s budget 5G chipset will make its official debut in the first quarter of 2021.
Samsung to make Qualcomm’s affordable 5G processor
Motorola, OPPO, and Xiaomi already announced to be one of the first OEMs to launch 5G smartphones powered by the new Snapdragon 4-series 5G SoC. As of now, the company is yet to reveal the specifications of this new chipset.
In June this year, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 690 mobile platform as its first 5G chipset in the Snapdragon 6-series. The recently unveiled Samsung Galaxy A42 5G could be the first smartphone to come powered by the Snapdragon 690 SoC.
It is the world’s second-largest semiconductor company
Samsung’s foundry business is the second largest in the world with a market share of 17.4 percent. However, it is still far behind the 53.9 percent market share of TSMC. Samsung has promised to invest KRW 133 trillion (approx. $112 billion) to become the world’s No. 1 logic chipmaker by 2030.
Both of these companies offer advanced technologies that make the chipsets powerful and power-efficient. The US export ban on Chinese companies should also help both these companies increase their market share in the coming months.
With the increasing demand for the chips, Samsung is eyeing for strong growth in the semiconductor industry. It also received orders for manufacturing the recently announced IBM POWER 10 processor using a 7nm process and Nvidia’s RTX 3000-series GPUs using a 5nm process.
Last week, Huawei was expected to unveil the world’s first 5nm mobile chipset manufactured by TSMC at IFA 2020 trade show in Berlin. However, the Chinese company has reportedly decided to skip the unveiling to avoid drawing unnecessary attention during the current crisis.
Even the upcoming flagship Snapdragon and Exynos chipset will be based on the 5nm process. While the 5nm chipsets are yet to hit the market, Samsung already started prototyping 3nm chips.
TSMC is reportedly continuing to use the current FinFET process for 3nm chips. Whereas, Samsung has opted for a more advanced Gate All Around Field Effect Transistor (GAA-FET) process.