TSMC to manufacture Snapdragon 855 processors: report

TSMC, the company known for manufacturing the A11 Bionic chip for Apple, will reportedly produce the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processors. A new report from Nikkei Asian Review suggests that TSMC has got the contract to manufacture the core processor and modem chip for Qualcomm’s next flagship chip.

The report quotes Qualcomm executive saying ‘Qualcomm is engaging TSMC to roll out a modem chip very soon in the first half of 2018 and TSMC will manufacture the mobile giant's upcoming flagship Snapdragon processor, known as Snapdragon 855, before the end of next year.’

Qualcomm and TSMC have previously worked together for the production of Snapdragon 808 and the 810. However, the Snapdragon 810 faced a lot of criticism for overheating issues. The report also indicates that the new SoC will use TSMC’s 7 nanmeter technology, and the same tech will be used for Apple phones coming in 2018.

TSMC has also manufactured the Kirin 970 for Huawei. It is an octa-core processor, with a 12-core GPU, dual-ISP and a high speed Cat 18. LTE modem. There is also a dedicated AI computing unit that will be capable of delivering 25x the performance, compared to similar CPU based AI workloads, with 50x more power efficiency.

The new Kirin 970 SoC enables smartphones to offer real time image recognition, voice interaction, and intelligent photography, all while eating up less energy.