The upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will arrive in two variants, one manufactured under TSMC’s 4nm process and another manufactured under TSMC’s 3nm process according to leaked conversation documents between Qualcomm and its partners in South Korea.
Qualcomm’s email conversations with its smartphone partners, including Samsung, have been leaked by the South Korean blog gamma0burst. For its chipset CPU structure, Qualcomm stated in the leaked documents that it will use ARM’s latest Cortex X4, Cortex A720, and Cortex A520 CPU cores.
It is interesting to note that Qualcomm (in the emails) shared that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (SM8650) SoC will be available in two variants: one manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm N4P node, and another manufactured on TSMC’s 3nm N3E node.
Qualcomm is expecting to create two different variants of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor for Android flagships in 2024, but if history is any indication, it could be a wild ride for 2024 Android flagships.
In 2022, Qualcomm released the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 with identical CPU combinations.
In 2024, it is unclear whether the two TSMC Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 variants will be distinguished as non-Plus and Plus versions. Although both variants have the same CPU combo structure with the only difference being the manufacturing process, it will be interesting to see the performance and power efficiency differences since their CPU combo structure is the same as the Snapdragon 8 and 8+ Gen 1 processors of 2022.
Qualcomm will launch the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile processor next month at the Snapdragon Summit 2023 in Hawaii. Stay tuned to our coverage of Qualcomm’s upcoming event to learn more.
