Qualcomm’s next flagship chips are almost certainly going to be built by TSMC. Again.
Reports out of South Korea indicate that Samsung’s 2nm manufacturing process isn’t ready for the kind of high-stakes production that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 lineup demands. The core issue is yield, which is the percentage of chips that come out of fabrication actually working correctly. Samsung is currently sitting below 60% on its 2nm node, a threshold widely considered the minimum for viable mass production. TSMC, by comparison, is reportedly achieving yields between 60 and 70%.
That gap matters enormously at scale. When you’re producing millions of premium chips, every percentage point of yield translates directly into cost and reliability. Qualcomm isn’t going to gamble its flagship product line on a process that still needs work.
This isn’t the first time Samsung’s foundry ambitions have run into a wall. The company lost Qualcomm’s business back in 2022 under similar circumstances, and a potential comeback has been discussed publicly, including by Qualcomm’s own CEO. Those signals raised expectations that Samsung might re-enter the picture. For now, that seems premature.
Qualcomm hasn’t completely ruled Samsung out. The company’s reported position is that a multi-sourcing strategy remains possible if yields improve meaningfully. That’s a practical hedge, not a vote of confidence.
Samsung is actively working to close the gap. Whether it can do so fast enough to capture even a portion of Qualcomm’s next production cycle remains the real question.
