Qualcomm Discusses Outsourcing Latest 2nm Chip Production to Samsung Foundry

On January 7, it was reported that Qualcomm, the global mobile application processor (AP) company based in the United States, is considering outsourcing the production of its next-generation APs to Samsung Electronics.

According to industry sources, Qualcomm has initiated discussions with Samsung Electronics among foundry companies to utilize the latest 2-nanometer (nm; 1 nm = one billionth of a meter) process for contract manufacturing.

If the contract is finalized, Samsung will resume the production of Qualcomm’s most advanced products for the first time in five years since 2022. Until 2021, Qualcomm had entrusted the production of its cutting-edge APs to Samsung's foundry, but subsequently switched to Taiwan’s TSMC because Samsung failed to meet Qualcomm’s requirements.

The reason Qualcomm is considering returning to Samsung’s foundry appears to be the increased confidence in Samsung’s technology, as demonstrated by its order in July last year to produce Tesla’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chip, ‘AI6,’ worth $16.5 billion (approximately 24 trillion won).