Qualcomm looks to Samsung for 28nm chip production

Qualcomm has been suffering shortages of their 28nm Snapdragon mobile chips for a while now as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) has been unable to keep up with demand. It has reached the point where smartphone partner HTC has been forced to swap out the latest Snapdragon S4 chip for the older S3 processor in some variants. All of this has caused Qualcomm to look to other foundries to ease the shortage.

Because of the lack of equipment at TSMC, Qualcomm has reached out to Samsung as well as United Microelectronics (UMC). UMC hopes to start production of the 28nm chips in the October-December quarter. However, it is unknown when Samsung will begin production.

Considering Samsung already produces chips for itself in the form of the Exynos line, as well as Apple's iPhone and iPad, they could end up providing chips for the vast amount of the smartphone market by the end of the year.

KitGuru says: Let's hope that 28nm capacity at foundries improves significantly by the end of the year.

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