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Samsung currently offers its Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone with different SoCs inside depending on the market, with some markets getting the Exynos 2200-powered Galaxy S22 Ultra, and other markets with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SoC.
But for their next-gen Galaxy S23 family of smartphones, rumor has it Samsung will drop the use of its in-house Exynos SoC and move into the warm, loving arms of Qualcomm and its next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. The news is coming from analyst and insider Ming-Chi Kuo, who outlined it pretty easily:
- Qualcomm will likely be the sole processor supplier for Samsung Galaxy S23 (vs. 70% shipment proportion for S22) thanks to the next flagship 5G chip SM8550 made by TSMC 4nm.
- S23 may not adopt Exynos 2300 made by Samsung 4nm because it can't compete with SM8550 in all aspects.
- SM8550 is optimized for TSMC's design rule, so it has obvious advantages over SM8450/SM8475 in computing power and power efficiency.
- Qualcomm/SM8550 will gain more market share in the high-end Android market in 2023. The economic recession affects the high-end market less, so the market share gain will significantly benefit Qualcomm and TSMC.
Samsung has been losing the SoC race for a while now, and while the new AMD RDNA 2-powered GPU inside of the Exynos 2200 SoC was meant to be something great, it was a steaming pile of shit. Apple is doing kick-ass things with its A series of mobile processors, with the next-gen A16 SoC dropping inside of the iPhone 14 later this year made on the newer TSMC N5P process node.
- Read more: Samsung Exynos 2200 'Xclipse' GPU specs: only has 555MHz GPU clock
- Read more: Samsung Exynos 2200 SoC with AMD RDNA 2 GPU is in major trouble
Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen1 isn't the fastest SoC, as there is the beefed-up Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 (the differentiator there is the + if you didn't see it) which is found inside of the new ASUS ROG Phone 6 Pro gaming smartphone.
It's a suped-up version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, but the new Samsung Galaxy S23 family of phones will reportedly get the next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC from Qualcomm.
- Read more: ASUS ROG Phone 6 gaming smartphone: first with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
- Read more: Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is made on Samsung 4nm process, not TSMC
- Read more: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SoC: 5G at 10Gbps, 30% faster Adreno GPU
- Read more: Qualcomm Snapdragon brand change: Qualcomm name dropped, more coming
This was previously rumored back in November 2021, where I was reporting that Samsung's then-next-gen, and now current-gen Galaxy S22 family of smartphones could shift exclusively to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 processor at the time. So the shift from Samsung's in-house Exynos to all-Qualcomm isn't new, and moving forward it only makes more sense.