By now, a lot of people already know that the latest and greatest mobile chipset from Qualcomm is the Snapdragon 821 and only a few handsets can boast that they are running it under the hood. Reports, however, indicate that this early, the company is working on the Snapdragon 830 and, if rumors are to be believed, Samsung is exclusively manufacturing the chipset.
Samsung seems a logical choice. For one, it is still currently manufacturing the Snapdragon 820 for Qualcomm. The working relationship must have been effective and the latter wants to achieve the same amount of success in its next-generation mobile processor.
Secondly, Samsung is reportedly eyeing the Snapdragon 830 for the Galaxy S8 model that will be sold in the United States. Its own Exynos 8895, on the other hand, will power the S8 devices shipping to the rest of the world. This is the same strategy that Samsung employed for its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge models.
The Snapdragon 830 chip is reportedly going to be produced using the 10nm process. This pertains to the semiconductor fabrication that makes use of process technologies between 10 and 20 nanometers. This is quite advanced especially when the Snapdragon 820 is rolling out of Samsung facilities via the second-generation 14nm LPP FinFET node.
There is still no information about performance improvements or comparisons involving the Snapdragon 830. However, one can turn to the change in the adopted frequencies in the manufacture of chips for insight. As Samsung transitions to 10nm, it is potentially aiming for significantly higher frequencies. According to Sam Mobile, Samsung's Exynos 8895, which is also said to be using the same 10nm process, has registered 4GHz peak speed on the Mongoose core so that its Cortex A53 core achieves 2.7GHz. In simple terms, this is translated to at least 30 percent improvement in performance.
There is also a report that point to a purported collaboration between Qualcomm and Samsung on the so-called Fan-out Panel Level Package (FoPLP) technology. This supposedly renders the printed circuit board for the package substrate obsolete. No clear information is available on how this particular variable would impact performance or efficiency. However, GSM Arena pointed out that it could possibly reduce production cost and would allow for a better way of integrating the I/O ports so that it leads to a significantly thinner package.
There is no official word yet coming from Qualcomm or Samsung that confirms or refutes the latest deal, including the Snapdragon 830's manufacturing process.
