On September 3, Qualcomm announced that it will be launching an affordable Snapdragon 4-series chipset with 5G. It will come to more than 35 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania/Australia, and South America in early 2021. Now, a report from Yonhap News claims that Qualcomm is aiming at Samsung to manufacture its upcoming affordable chipset.

According to the report, the two companies have struck a deal for the fabrication of 5G chipsets for budget smartphones, which is most likely to be the upcoming Snapdragon 4-series that will be used in affordable 5G smartphones. Qualcomm‘s 5G mobile platform offerings to date include:

• Snapdragon 8-series: Snapdragon 865 Plus, Snapdragon 865, Snapdragon 855
• Snapdragon 7-series: Snapdragon 768G, Snapdragon 765 and 765G
• Snapdragon 6-series: Snapdragon 690

The Snapdragon 690 is based on 8 nm process, while the Snapdragon 765/768 makes use of 7 nm EUV process. Considering the price point, the 5G Snapdragon 4-series could be based on 8nm process.

The new order is likely to go to the 8 nm foundry. Motorola, OPPO, and Xiaomi are some of the phone manufacturers that have already committed to launching phones with the upcoming 5G Snapdragon 4-series SoC. Hence, the production could be kicking off soon.

To recall, Samsung lost the contracts for flagship Snapdragons to TSMC. However, it received orders from Nvidia to develop a custom “8N” process for use in the 3000-series GPUs. The company was also picked by IBM for its new Power10 processors, which are made on the 7 nm EUV process.

As per the market researcher TrendForce, Samsung is estimated to have a 17.4 percent market share in the global foundry industry in the third quarter of the year, while TSMC is expected to continue its dominance with a 53.9 percent market share. Further, the South Korean giant has vowed to invest 133 trillion won (US$112 billion) to become the world’s leading logic chipmaker by 2030.