Samsung may have had a great financial 2017 but it seems there’s a bumpy road ahead in 2018. A new report coming from Nikkei Asia claims that Qualcomm is awarding the contract of Snapdragon 855 chips and modems next year to TSMC. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung have been arch-rivals for long. In the past, both have been playing the cat-mouse game for some time in the foundry industry.
Gizchina News of the week
According to the report, chip industry executives say, “Qualcomm is engaging TSMC to roll out a modem chip very soon in the first half of 2018 and TSMC will manufacture the mobile giant’s upcoming flagship Snapdragon processor, known as Snapdragon 855, before the end of next year.”
This has probably happened because Samsung has decided to continue using the 10 nm process. Whereas TSMC is more ready to use the 7nm process. Hence, the Taiwan-based chip maker will not only snag Snapdragon 855 contracts but will also be making Apple’s 7 nm chips.
Things will heat up between the two giants as both vie for a share of Qualcomm’s flagship chip contract in 2019. By then, Samsung will also be in a position to manufacture on the same process. The report states that Samsung might have finally have an upper hand at that time because Samsung uses Qualcomm chips in its phones.
