Samsung is currently the exclusive manufacturer of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC and according to a recent article by ETnews, it looks like they’ll continue to be the exclusive manufacturer of Qualcomm’s next generation Snapdragon 830 SoC as well.
Qualcomm reportedly struck a deal with Samsung to produce the Snapdragon 830 at Samsung’s fabs in exchange for Samsung to utilize the Snapdragon 830 in their upcoming Galaxy S8. Qualcomm struck a similar deal with Samsung to supply the Snapdragon 820 for the Samsung Galaxy S7. According to industry sources, Samsung will begin mass producing 10nm based Snapdragon 830 at the end of this year.
Once the undisputed market leader of mobile SoCs in previous years, Qualcomm has suffered a bit in recent years due to overheating issues on their older Snapdragon 810 SoCs and intensifying competition in the space. Several years ago, few smartphone makers utilized their own SoC designs however today, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, and LG are all either developing or shipping their own mobile SoCs in their products. In 2015, Samsung dumped the Snapdragon 810 SoC for their Galaxy S6 citing heat issues subsequently resulting in a massive 4.5% decrease in revenue for Qualcomm. Obviously, this isn’t something Qualcomm is interested in repeating anytime soon.
Source: ETnews
