Qualcomm will use the N3E manufacturing process with MediaTek and will not switch to Samsung’s manufacturing next year
In Late 2024, according to the TSMC is the newest rumour making the rounds suggesting that Qualcomm would secure shipments for its chipsets on the cutting-edge manufacturing process alongside Apple. The rumour claims that Qualcomm will do this in order to attract additional customers to its N3E lines in the following year. Prior to this, it was said that the San Diego company would be leaving the Taiwanese manufacturer and going to Samsung’s foundry entirely for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 since TSMC could only devote 15 percent of its 3nm manufacturing to Qualcomm. Instead, Qualcomm would move to Samsung’s foundry for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
The total number of N3E shipments allocated to Qualcomm is not indicated in the paper; thus, it is possible that Apple will once again place the bulk of its orders with TSMC.
Although it seems like Apple has a lock on practically all of TSMC’s 3nm wafer shipments for this year, it is believed that 2024 will have a different outcome. According to Commercial Times, Qualcomm and MediaTek will share the N3E manufacturing lines while they prepare their own next-generation smartphone chipsets. This information comes from the publication. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is said to be the first device from the firm to utilise bespoke Oryon cores. This was made possible as a result of the company’s purchase of Nuvia. MediaTek, on the other hand, has its own plans in the works.
Increased wafer costs and poor yields are two of the reasons why Qualcomm has not taken use of TSMC’s N3B node this year. N3E is the enhanced technology that the company has developed; yields are said to be seeing a significant improvement, and the reduced manufacturing cost can only work to the chipset manufacturer’s advantage. It has been said that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 would be mass manufactured using TSMC’s N4P or advanced 4nm architecture. Additionally, it has been rumoured that it will be more costly than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which was rumoured to cost $160 per unit. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is expected to ship later this year.
If Qualcomm had ultimately decided to use the N3B wafers produced by TSMC this year, the price of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 would have been through the roof. Its smartphone and tablet partners would have been forced to either dramatically reduce their profit margins or significantly increase the prices of their own devices as a result of this, neither of which would have been helpful for those businesses. This indicates that even while the performance and power-efficiency disparity between Apple’s A17 Bionic and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 would widen this year, it will not be at the expense of Qualcomm’s partners. This is because the gap will be caused by Apple.
Apple is expected to once again absorb the bulk of TSMC’s N3E shipments for the next year since the company plans to use that technology for a broad variety of chipset releases. The only other launch we can think of right now is the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4, which is likely to be found in Windows laptops. This launch comes on the heels of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which was just recently released.
