Qualcomm’s next gen flagship - Snapdragon 835 - to be made in partnership with Samsung

Qualcomm Technologies has announced that it will be partnering with Samsung for the manufacture of its next generation flagship, the Snapdragon 835 processor, which will be made using Samsung’s 10nm FinFET process technology. Samsung had started making chips based on the 10nm process back in October , thereby making it the first industry player to do so. According to South Korea’s Electronic Times, it was being speculated that Samsung would be the sole contract manufacturer of Qualcomm Inc’s high-end Snapdragon chips using 10-nanometre production technology and these processors would be used in Samsung’s next Galaxy S smartphones expected to launch in early 2017. While Qualcomm has confirmed the partnership with Samsung for making Snapdragon 835, it did not confirm the launch partners for Snapdragon 835. However, going by the past, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume Samsung to be one of those partners. Speaking of the announcement, Kevin Kressin, senior vice president, product management at Qualcomm said, “Using the new 10nm process node is expected to allow our premium tier Snapdragon 835 processor to deliver greater power efficiency and increased performance while also allowing us to add a number of new capabilities that can improve the user experience of tomorrow’s mobile devices.” According to Qualcomm, as compared to the 14nm FinFET processors, Samsung’s 10nm process node offers a 30 percent increase in area efficiency and 27 percent higher performance or 40 percent lower power consumption. This will enable Snapdragon 835 to be more power efficient and offer smaller chip footprint. This will give OEMs more usable space inside the phones to pack in higher capacity batteries or help make slimmer design profiles. Snapdragon 835 is in production now and expected to ship in commercial devices in the first half of 2017. Disclaimer: This correspondent was invited by Qualcomm India to New York for the Snapdragon Technology Summit. All travel and accommodation expenses were taken care of by Qualcomm India.