Samsung made 2nm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 may be coming soon

Yesterday, Qualcomm revealed that it has been in talks with Samsung to get one of its chipsets made on the South Korean tech giant’s 2nm fabrication process (mostly on SF2P). However, there was no information about which SoC the American chip maker was planning to get made from Samsung. Well, now we do.

According to a report from Hankyung Korea Market, Qualcomm is planning to get its latest flagship chipset for mobile devices, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, made by Samsung Foundry. It is the same SoC that Samsung is planning to use in its next lineup of non-foldable flagship phones, the Galaxy S26 series.

Currently, Qualcomm gets the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 made on TSMC's 3nm fabrication process. However, the American chip maker is planning to get it manufactured on Samsung’s 2nm fabrication process in the future. To that extent, Qualcomm says that it has “completed the 2nm chip design with Samsung Electronics and is exchanging wafers for performance modifications.”

Reportedly, Samsung is planning to allocate 10% of the production capacity of its S3 plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, for manufacturing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Considering that the facility can produce 20,000 12-inch wafers per month, it can make 2,000 wafers for Qualcomm every month. Reportedly, the South Korean tech giant offers each 2nm wafer for $20,000.

It means that Samsung can generate around $4,00,00,00,00 (approximately KRW 5,81,09,20,00,000) revenue from Qualcomm every month. The total order value is said to reach trillions of won and represent approximately 4% of Samsung Foundry’s revenue of around 17 trillion won.

The last time Qualcomm got SoCs made from Samsung was in 2021. However, the American chip maker didn't continue the partnership as Samsung wasn't able to make chips as good as TSMC. Qualcomm is said to be returning as Samsung now has a technological lead over TSMC.