On April 20th, it was revealed by Digital Chat Station that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 will be the first to adopt the TSMC 3nm process, marking the official entry of the Android camp into the era of 3nm.
As early as last year, Apple took the lead in embracing the 3nm process with the debut of the A17 Pro chip, which was first featured in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Reportedly, TSMC has planned up to five variants of the 3nm process, namely N3B, N3E, N3P, N3S, and N3X, with N3B being the initial 3nm node used in the A17 Pro.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen4, set to debut in October this year, will utilize TSMC's second-generation 3nm process, N3E, an enhanced version of N3B. N3E boasts improved power efficiency over N3B, higher yield rates, and relatively lower costs.
Additionally, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 will introduce the in-house developed Nuvia architecture, departing from the use of the Arm reference architecture. This marks a significant departure in the history of Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G SoCs.
Digital Chat Station revealed that the current performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen4 is extremely robust. However, due to high frequency settings, power efficiency is average, and it is anticipated that frequencies will be lowered during mass production.
