Qualcomm’s reputation as the world’s leading mobile chip-maker seemed to be unmatched. Even 3 years ago, the company was making chipsets for almost all the major mobile brands in the Android space.
But a lot has changed in the past 3 years, the world has seen itself going through a global pandemic, chip manufacturers have gone through severe silicon shortages and Qualcomm has lost its crown to the emerging tech giant MediaTek.
But that is not all. The consistency Qualcomm used to maintain in its chip designs has also been hindered, the reputation Qualcomm had as the maker of the best flagship processors for Android has fallen from grace.
It was evident in the performance of its 2021 flagship the Snapdragon 888, and it is now more evident in the performance of its latest flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The new naming scheme couldn’t hide the inconsistency Qualcomm is having in its processor department.
Both the Snapdragon 888 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 runs really hot, the manufacturers had a tough time maintaining the thermals of these processors throughout their various iterations of Android models.
As a result, the battery performance took a hit. Qualcomm’s shift from 7nm process to 5nm and 4nm process respectively did not translate into better efficiency and better battery life in the latest flagship Android phones.
On the other hand, Apple’s 5nm processed Bionic A15 chips broke all the records of processor efficiency of the past.
Courtesy: Geeky Stuff
The photo shows a stress test of different mobile chipsets, where 3 out of 4 processors are made by Qualcomm, and all of them are their different iterations of flagship processors.
Here the Snapdragon 870 is the most stable processor amongst all the 4, maintaining consistent performance throughout the test, and the Snapdragon 888, the 8 gen 1, and Google’s Tensor chip fall behind the older 870, even after having more efficient architecture.
Especially the latest 8 gen 1 throttles heavily on the stress test. why?
The answer lies in the manufacturing process. TSMC used to be the manufacturer of Snapdragon processors until 2020, and all the Snapdragon processors like the SD 855, SD 865, and SD 870 had stable performance across the board.
Even the latest 765g and the 778g are made on the TSMC platform, and both the chipsets deliver consistent performance while also running significantly cooler.
The problem started for Qualcomm when Apple and MediaTek took up all the manufacturing space of TSMC’s 4nm process as the companies have 15 per cent and 40 per cent market share respectively in the chip market, leaving Qualcomm in the dust.
So, the company had to turn to the only alternative available - Samsung. Now Samsung’s foundry also has 4nm architecture and both Snapdragon 888 and 8 Gen1, along with Google’s Tensor have been made in Samsung’s plant.
But the performance of these chipsets has not been consistent as Samsung has a noticeably less efficient manufacturing process than its rival TSMC.
Samsung’s notoriety with its underwhelming Exynos processors has now also been passed onto the Qualcomm processors, and this has hurt Qualcomm a lot.
The company is reportedly unhappy with Samsung’s manufacturing and has ordered a new shipment of 4nm processors from TSMC.
So surprisingly, for the first time, we might see that the same processor is made by two manufacturers in the mobile market, and it won’t be surprising if the same processors deliver a different level of performance in the upcoming devices.
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