While Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 devices have just started hitting the market, Softbank has already confirmed its next-generation SoC. Qualcomm’s next flagship for 2019 will be called as Snapdragon 855. The Snapdragon 855 Fusion Mobile Platform is expected to be unveiled by Fall year with first devices shipping in 2019. According to a report on AndroidHeadlines, the details on the new processor showed up in Softbank’s presentations when talking about the Sprint’s upcoming 5G network. The presentation didn’t reveal any details regarding the chipset, but it is being called as the “Snapdragon 855 Fusion Platform”. The addition of the word “Fusion” is pretty interesting as it suggests the company may bring in some new features to the chipset.
Softbank in its earnings report also confirmed that Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 would come with an integrated SDX50 5G-capable modem. This means the SD855 will essentially be a dual-modem chipset since it will still need support for 4G LTE.
The bank also mentioned its partners in the presentation which include Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia and also Qualcomm. The presentation pointed out that telecom equipment partners, namely Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia, will start deploying “Massive MIMO sites from 2018” and expand to major markets in 2019.
The news comes weeks after it was reported that Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 would adopt latest 7nm manufacturing process instead of the 10nm manufacturing process that is used for the Snapdragon 845 and Snapdragon 835. This will make the upcoming SoC more powerful and power efficient than its predecessors.
In addition, reports have indicated that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) could be for manufacturing the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 SoC instead of Samsung.
A Nikkei Asian Review report claimed that TSMC had been awarded the contract for the next generation chipset. Previous chipsets such as the Snapdragon 820, 835 and the just launched Snapdragon 845 were all manufactured by Samsung. This is because Qualcomm plans to use the latest 7-nanometer technology for its processors, though Samsung is using the older 10nm manufacturing.
More details on the upcoming chipset will surface in the coming months, as we approach the announcement of the Snapdragon 855 SoC.
