Qualcomm has moved away from regular partner, Taiwan's TSMC, and enlisted the help of South Korean Samsung -- at least as far Snapdragon 820 is concerned. Public anticipation over this move is heightened by Samsung's announcement on use of the second generation of its 14nm FinFET process technology. The company's Exynos 8 Octa processor will definitely use Samsung's 14nm LPP (Low-Power Plus) process. So will Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor along with Samsung's other clients.
PCWorld reports that Qualcomm explained its decision to move ahead with the deal with Samsung as regular business, with no other strategic agenda except to ensure the best for its processor. "Our decision to choose a specific process technology is based on its ability to meet our design goals for performance, power efficiency and yield," a spokeswoman for Qualcomm stated.
According to Forbes, chips produced by Samsung's 14nm LPP process are purported to be 15% quicker and 15% more power efficient than previous models. This is a definite upper for Qualcomm, which suffered a bout of negative publicity from rumors that Snapdragon 810 by TSMC had overheating problems. This was allegedly why Samsung opted out of using Snapdragon for Samsung Galaxy S6 and went with Samsung's own Exynos 7420 processor.
Although, Qualcomm's VP of marketing Tim McDonough, spoke with Forbes to deny the claims, Qualcomm's clients such as HTC with HTC One M9 and LG with LG G Flex 2, who were on Snapdragon 810 were vastly affected by. "The rumours are rubbish, there was not an overheating problem with the Snapdragon 810 in commercial devices", McDonough said categorically.
The eager anticipation is growing louder over experiencing Snapdragon in the new devices coming out within the first half of 2016. This largely proves that the deal with Samsung has, this early, done much to restore the confidence that Qualcomm lost in 2015.
Forbes projects that if Snapdragon 820 does find its way into the Samsung Galaxy S7 handsets, the Korean handsets will have the Exynos 8 Octa processor while the US and European handsets will use the latest Snapdragon. Despite leaks of the device's specs and rumors that it will be announced in the 2016 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Samsung refuses to confirm any supposition on Samsung Galaxy S7 using the Snapdragon 820.
Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, emphasises Samsung's practice of running business in compartments. In this way, its mobile and semiconductor businesses don't really mix. "Therefore, I don't believe that the fact the 820 is built by Samsung increases its chances of being in the SGS7," Moorhead points out.
Do you think Samsung Galaxy S7 will carry Snapdragon 820? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
