Qualcomm is rumored to take a big risk with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC
Sometime next October, most likely about a week before Halloween, Qualcomm will announce the next iteration of its flagship application processor (AP), the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The SoC, with the codename "Sun," will be manufactured by TSMC using its 3nm process node. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is going to be a big deal for Qualcomm because it will use Qualcomm's custom Oryon CPU cores for the first time.
According to a Weibo post written by Digital Chat Station (via AndroidAuthority) and translated by Google Translate, the SM8750 (the model number of the chipset) will feature two big "Phoenix" cores and six medium "Phoenix" cores. There will be no little CPU cores which are usually low-powered, high-efficiency cores designed to handle less taxing tasks and save battery life.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC will still use Arm's Cortex CPU cores
In a similar vein, MediaTek's brand new flagship Dimensity 9300 AP features four Cortex-X4 prime CPU cores and four Cortex-A720 performance CPU cores. The lack of any efficiency CPU cores has led some to express concern about the chipset overheating and during a recent stress test, the chip throttled its performance by 46% because of the heat. MediaTek called the test "flawed." The chip designer also says that the Dimensity 9300 saves 10% to 15% on power requirements when running heavy or "typical" tasks. It also offers up to 33% power savings when running at the same performance level as the Dimensity 9200.
Qualcomm has been reducing the number of little cores starting with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 which had three little cores compared to four on its predecessor. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which will be found on high-end Android phones from now through 2024, has only two little cores. Like MediaTek witht e Dimensity 9300, if Digital Chat Station is right, Qualcomm will be opening itself up to worries and concerns about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP overheating.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be used in 2025 on the Galaxy S25 Ultra and some of the other models in the Galaxy S25 line. We could see both TSMC and Samsung Foundry dual source the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 that Samsung will use to power some of its flagship phones in 2026.
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