Samsung seeing more orders for its 14nm process

Samsung is a rising star in the foundry business as more and more chip designers are looking to diversify their chip production. DigiTimes reports Qualcomm is expected to manufacture its next-gen Snapdragon 820 at Samsung's 14nm node and others are expected to follow. Late last month it was revealed that NVIDIA is now using Samsung's 14nm FinFET process for its Tegra lineup and Samsung also has a good chance of scoring orders from AMD and Mediatek. It is believed Qualcomm will contract Samsung to make 50 percent or even higher of the production of its Snapdragon 820 chips in 2016.

Qualcomm was forced to accelerate the roadmap of its mobile AP following a mishap of the Snapdragon 810 and is also being pushed to fabricate its Snapdragon 820 via Samsung's 14nm process as the development of a similar advanced 16nm process by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacture Company (TSMC) is currently lagging Samsung's 14nm node by about one quarter, Digitimes Research believes.

With Samsung shifting to use in-house developed APs for its high-end models such as the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5 instead of Qualcomm's APs, Qualcomm is expected to see its high-end AP shipments halve to 100 million units in 2015. As a result, the US-based chip supplier may use the Snapdragon 820 orders as a bargain chip persuading Samsung to purchase more of its high-end Snapdragon chips.