Mystery Snapdragon 8 chip produced by TSMC using its 4nm node

Back in 2021, when everyone expected Qualcomm's next flagship application processor (AP) to be the Snapdragon 898, leaker Digital Chat Station posted that the chip would be called the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. And of course, history has shown that he was correct. Since then, he has made some other good calls which is why we should pay attention to his latest Weibo post (via Gizmochina).

Apparently, Qualcomm has a mystery chip with the model number of SM8635. The chip is reportedly being manufactured by TSMC using its 4nm process node. We know that this is not the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 because that chip will use Qualcomm's own CPU cores and is expected to be manufactured using TSMC's second-gen 3nm node, N3E.

The mystery chip, according to Digital Chat Station, will include one Cortex-X4 Prime CPU core and an Adreno 735 GPU. The leaker added that the chip scored an AnTuTu benchmark score of over 1.7 million. Tech Journalist Roland Quandt said in a tweet that Qualcomm has two similar chips in development. The SM7675 is believed to be the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, the most powerful SoC in the Snapdragon 7 series. And the other chip is our mystery silicon, the SM8635.

The SM8635 is expected to be found powering the Poco F6, which was originally expected to use the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3. Other phones believed to use the mystery chip include the Redmi Note 13 Turbo and an iQOO Neo-series phone that is on the way.

Considering that the SM8635's AnTuTu score topped the score produced by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, one theory is that the chip is a lite version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Perhaps something like the Snapdragon 8- Gen 3. No, I'm not serious about that name, but it does give us an idea of where this AP stands in Qualcomm's current Snapdragon lineup which is in between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC.