Qualcomm reportedly tests Samsung’s 2nm process: TSMC’s price is too high

 TSMC has started trial production of the 2nm process at its Baoshan plant in Hsinchu. With the arrival of the 2nm process, its price has also risen.

It is reported that the price of TSMC’s 2nm wafers has exceeded US$30,000. In comparison, the current price of 3nm wafers is approximately between US$18,500 and US$20,000.

Because TSMC’s quotation is too high, Qualcomm, Nvidia and other companies are considering using Samsung’s 2nm process. The report pointed out that Qualcomm is using Samsung’s 2nm process for testing and has not yet finalized whether to give the order to Samsung for foundry.

In the past, Samsung’s reputation as a foundry was not good in the industry. The main reason was that the Snapdragon 888 chip it manufactured overheated. At that time, Samsung’s 5nm process was not up to standard, combined with Arm’s X1 super core power consumption was too high, which eventually led to the Snapdragon 888 heating problem.

According to the test by the UP host, after running the game “Genshin Impact” with the picture quality turned up for 15 minutes, the maximum temperatures of many Snapdragon 888 models exceeded 45 degrees. Not only were the temperatures high, but these models also experienced reduced brightness and frame rates. The sub-flagship Snapdragon 870 mobile phones launched at the same time performed better, and were jokingly called “Reverse Pro” by netizens.

Under the same gaming conditions, the average chip power consumption of TSMC’s 5nm chips, Kirin 9000 and Apple A14, is 2.9W and 2.4W, while that of the Snapdragon 888 using Samsung’s 5nm technology is 4.0W, so this chip is called the “Fire Dragon” by everyone.

It is precisely because of Samsung’s process failure that Qualcomm turned to TSMC for the Snapdragon 8 series platform starting from Snapdragon 8+ Gen1, and its performance is currently stable.

If the Snapdragon platform switches to Samsung’s 2nm process, its power consumption issue will become a hot topic in the industry.