According to the latest leaks and rumours, Google has finally ditched the Samsung foundry and has partnered with TSMC for its upcoming fifth generation Tensor G5 chipset, which will be powering Google’s upcoming Pixel smartphones.
Google Tried a Lot
Google Tensor processors had made their debut in 2021 with Google Pixel 6 smartphones . Being built on Samsung’s 5 nm node technology , it was highly criticised for its heating and was comparably less powerful than its competitors from Snapdragon at the time.
But since it was the first official smart phone SOC from Google , people thought that with passing time, Tensor processors would mature and would come in comparison with its competitors.
But guess what? Years passed , new tensor processors came, and nothing has still changed . Google tried really hard to incorporate NPUs, increase clock speed, , increase the number of cores, but still the heating issues and stability of the processors remained.
But now things might improve with the coming of TSMC in the picture, as this Google has finally broken its 4-year partnership with Samsung Foundary, as it was Samsung that was manufacturing Google’s tensor processors since its inception.
Analysing the Samsung foundry situation.
It is a well known fact that Samsung foundry is far cheaper than TSMC . But still, it has not yet been able to gather as many customers as TSMC . Actually, the experience of mobile soc design companies has been quite sour with Samsung .
My statement will be easy to get with the Qualcomm example.
Qualcomm had given the contract for manufacturing the Snapdragon 888 and 8 gen1 to Samsung for its flagship phones.
Both the flagship phone series S21 and S22, which were being powered by these Snapdragon 888 and 8 gen1, were hugely criticised for overheating and lesser battery backup compared to their predecessors.
Users had taken over X(Twitter at that time) with various memes.
Me playing Clash of Clans on my Samsung Galaxy s21 5g with a massive storage of 256gb, 120 Hertz refresh rate and Qualcomm snapdragon 888 chipset.😹 https://t.co/O4wPQDbUtG
— Prof. (@VOdulate) September 12, 2024
After this, Qualcomm again switched to TSMC for its latest generation flagship processors.
Even TSMC snitched away the contract of manufacturing processors on 3nm-based technology away from Samsung for major companies like Qualcomm , Nvidia , Google, and Mediatek.
All because of low yields and inefficiencies. Comparative analyses suggest that Samsung’s chips consume more power and generate more heat, performing 10% to 20% lower in efficiency compared to TSMC.
Power efficiency and yield rate have always been issues with Samsung Foundry.
Google loved Samsung.
So , Google had been a fanboy of Samsung for a long time in the Android world . Be it providing some special Android features first just for Samsung and then releasing it for its pixel devices to fabricating its first Tensor chip, Google has always been Samsung first.
According to the reports, the initial versions of Tensor chipsets were just a special version of Exynos chipsets . It was like taking a baked cake and adding some extra stuff on top and selling it by a different name . But as Google’s semiconductor team matured, Google started more of designing the Tensor chipsets . But still preferred Samsung as a partner for its chip fabrication.
So , one thing that remained with the Pixel phones is its less capable Tensor SOc coupled with excessive heating issues , poor battery backup, and stability. Every year Google made substantial improvements in its software , be it the camera or its UI , but every time it got compared with other phones in the flagship category, it bottomed.
Just to give some references.
As you can see, Tensor processors suffered with stability issues , throttling, and heating issues year on year. Even Google had to give a response to the tech community, and the Google utilising TSMC’s advanced 3 nm node technology for its upcoming 5th generation Tensor might be a response to it.
Along with the reports around Samsung’s 3nm process technology, the low yield rate and low power efficiency would have acted like the most suitable time to move towards TSMC.
How is this Google’s move going to affect Samsung’s foundry business?
Already Covid Samsung foundry has not been able to recover much . Previous year only Samsung’s foundry business had incurred a 96% drop in first-quarter profits.
With more and more customers moving away from Samsung foundries, it might raise a question on this business vertical.
Also, Samsung itself moving away from its own chipset for flagships affirms the situation that Smaung’s foundry still has a lot to improve if they want to come back to business.
Discover more from WireUnwired
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
