Samsung will Reportedly Manufacture the Snapdragon 830 for Qualcomm

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Qualcomm has generally hired companies like TSMC to manufacture the custom Snapdragon SoCs that so many mobile devices use these days. This worked out well for them for years, but changed last year with the Snapdragon 820. It’s unclear if this transition happened because Qualcomm was unhappy with how the Snapdragon 810 turned out (which was made by TSMC), or if they were just able to get a better price or process from Samsung.

Whatever the reason is, Samsung fabricating the Snapdragon 830 would mark the second year in a row that Qualcomm has opted to go with the South Korean tech giant. This latest report comes from ETNews and tells us Samsung LSI (their semiconductor company), will be manufacturing the Snapdragon 830 SoC for Qualcomm. From the report, we also learn that the Snapdragon 830 and the Exynos 8895 will use Samsung’s 10nm process.

For comparison, the Snapdragon 820, Snapdragon 821, and the Exynos 8890 are using Samsung’s 14nm process. So we should see a decrease in heat generation as well as battery consumption, on top of an increase in performance. Both the Snapdragon 830 and Exynos 8895 are said to be jointly developed by Samsung and Qualcomm using FoPLP (Fan-out Panel Level Package) technology.

This Fan-out Panel Level Package will allow for Samsung to eliminate the need for PCBs (printed circuit boards) for the package substrate. As a result, this will help reduce the cost of production for Samsung, which will be great for the company’s financial report. The elimination of PCBs will also allow for an easier way to increase input and output ports so that Samsung can manufacture thinner packages.

Assuming there aren’t any issues like we saw with the Snapdragon 808 and Snapdragon 810, next year is shaping up to be great for flagship Android SoCs. The report also goes on to say that Samsung will be using the Snapdragon 830 in the Galaxy S8 for certain markets (just like we saw this year with the Galaxy S7 and the Note 7).