Qualcomm Samsung chip update (Qualcomm doesn't want Samsung to use its advanced chipset design)

Dynamics among major chipset manufacturers seem to be changing. In the recent news, Samsung's OEM business has performed well this year, but Qualcomm has reportedly decided to remove its best chipset solution from Samsung, which could cause trouble.

The Snapdragon 865 was initially thought to be made by Samsung using 7nm EUV technology, but recent reports seem to confirm that the chipset is mass-produced by TSMC. According to the Korea Business Daily, Qualcomm does not want to share its AP-related intellectual property with Samsung. This will better protect your trade secrets and weaken Samsung's contract manufacturing business.

Conflicts of interest may be intensifying.

Samsung and Qualcomm have worked together in the past. In fact, it is said that the non-advanced Snapdragon 765 chipset is still planned to be put into production at the Samsung factory. However, Qualcomm is clearly reluctant to provide Samsung with an early preview of its top chipset solutions, especially since Samsung designs and manufactures its own chipset family, Exynos.

Samsung still has a long way to go to customize the CPU kernel for its Exynos SoC. It is reported that the company will focus more on the development of GPU and NPU. However, this may not be enough to persuade Qualcomm to apply its technology to itself. The company will work more closely with TSMC, and Samsung's contract manufacturing business will lose a lot of potential revenue.

It is said that Samsung's contract manufacturing business will have a 17.8% market share by the end of 2019. However, despite its positive annual results, TSMC still has a 52.7 per cent market share. In the long run, perhaps other partnerships will help Samsung's contract manufacturing business. Earlier this week, the company announced that it would produce chips for Baidu.