Qualcomm rumored to unveil 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ in May; chip could be powering new phones by June

We've been telling you about an enhanced version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip with a "+" at the end of the name. The component is supposed to be manufactured by TSMC using its 4nm process node. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is built by Samsung Foundry using its much less efficient 4nm process node.

The reason for Qualcomm's decision to leave Samsung for TSMC has to do with Samsung's poor yield which is said to be 35%. That is half of Qualcomm's yield of 70%. What this means is that 35% of the chips cut out from each wafer by Samsung at the aforementioned process node do not pass QC testing. That is a pretty large number of chips that fail to make the final cut leaving Qualcomm short of the components it needs and exacerbating the current chip shortage.

A tweet from tipster Yogesh Brar (via onsitego) states that the Qualcomm 8 Gen 1+ will also be known as the SM8475 (compared to SM8450 for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1). The chip will be introduced in May, says the tipster. TSMC is expected to takeover the manufacturing of Qualcomm's flagship chips with the Taiwan-based foundry delivering a higher yield than Samsung.

With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ expected to be introduced in May, by the following month we should see the SoC driving smartphones made by companies such as OnePlus, Lenovo's Motorola, and Xiaomi.  We have some idea about how powerful the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ is compared to the current "non-plus" variant thanks to a comparison of Qualcomm's model numbers. First, consider that the Snapdragon 888 was model SM-8350 and the Snapdragon 888+ used model number SM8350-AC.

We already mentioned that Brar's tip says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ is model number SM8475 compared to SM8450 for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (non-plus) variant. The difference in model numbers seems small until you realize that there was no numerical difference in model numbers between the Snapdragon 888 (SM8350) and Snapdragon 888+ (SM8350-AC). The only difference was the letters "AC"  that were added to the newer and more powerful Snapdragon 888+.

Qualcomm is really feeling the competitive heat from MediaTek and its Dimensity 9000 SoC. MediaTek is already a TSMC customer and Qualcomm doesn't have time to spare to see whether Samsung Foundry can work out its problems.