Apparently Qualcomm is ready to present the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus: according to the Chinese leaker Digital Chat Station, the American chipmaker will raise the curtain even next week. The source even ventures a precise date – the May, 20th, which is next Friday, and she is pretty sure that several new smartphones equipped with the chip will be presented at the same time. Finally, the following week should be the turn of the much talked about Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, the second chip to use the new nomenclature inaugurated by Qualcomm at the end of 2021.
S8G1 + therefore represents an anomaly compared to what has been seen in recent years for a number of reasons: first and foremost it will arrive much sooner than usual and then there is more interest in it because it promises a more significant upgrade than a simple increase in operating frequencies. In fact, the foundry will change which physically takes care of producing it: from Samsung it will pass to TSMC. The production process will always remain at 4 nm, but it is rumored that TSMC’s is a little more refined and efficient; in a nutshell, the new chip should consume less power while going faster, and have fewer overheating problems.
We do not have concrete details on the efficiency rate of the TSMC process, but good news is also desirable in this sense: according to a report a few months ago, even Less than one in two chips would come out flawlessly from Samsung’s machines. This would be one of the main reasons why Qualcomm would have decided to change supplier, after several years of exclusive with Samsung (at least for the top range). It is interesting to note that at the time Qualcomm switched from TSMC to Samsung after the now famous Snapdragon 810 debacle, the subject of countless thermal throttling problems (and consequent memes and Internet catchphrases).
What remains to be clarified is the time-to-market, as recent rumors say that the production of the chip is delayed. As for smartphones, in the front row there are Xiaomi and above all Motorola, with the much talked about Frontier (whose presentation was scheduled for yesterday, even, and instead nothing has been done). As for the future, the rumors focus on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 in particular, but we expect the company to be much bigger.
