Galaxy S26 Ultra's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 AP to get huge speed jump

Qualcomm hasn't even officially announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 application processor (AP) and won't until sometime next month. Some rumors say that the chip might be called the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Until we hear from Qualcomm that this is the case, we will continue to call it the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The first phone to use the SoC is expected to be a Xiaomi-branded device that could also be released in October. While the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will power flagship Android phones released in 2024-2025, a leaker claims to have information about 2025's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 application processor.

Released only to fans, the post on the Weibo platform made by The Undead says that Qualcomm will go ahead and dual source the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 from both TSMC and Samsung Foundry. You might recall that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was originally produced by Samsung Foundry. But the yields from the foundry were so low that it forced Qualcomm to pay for too many defective chips. The chip designer, not the foundry, is typically the one fiscally responsible for defective SoCs. Qualcomm decided to switch to TSMC and the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 was born.

TSMC was the exclusive manufacturer behind the subsequent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The latter will be the first Snapdragon AP built using a 3nm process node as TSMC will produce the chips using its second-gen 3nm (N3E) technology. While there are still concerns about Samsung Foundry's 3nm yield, and thus its 2nm yield as well, it appears that dual sourcing is still on the table.

The leaker, known as The Undead on Weibo, says that the Snapdragon Gen 5 AP will continue to sport the 2 + 6 configuration that will be used on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. The latter will feature two Cortex-X925 performance CPU cores running at a clock speed of up to 4.37GHz along with six Cortex-A725 efficiency CPU cores at a clock speed of up to 2.8GHz.

The Undead, whose track record is unknown, says that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 will be built by TSMC on its third-gen 3nm process node (N3P) with two performance cores running at a clock speed as fast as 5GHz. The six efficiency cores will have a clock speed peaking at 4GHz. These speeds are only expected for the variant of the AP that will be built by TSMC. The version of the chip to be made by Samsung Foundry is expected to be manufactured using the latter's SF2 2nm node and the clock speeds for that version of the chipset are not known.

If Qualcomm does dual source the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 AP, it will be interesting to see the Geekbench results of the SoC from both foundries since the performance and efficiency of Samsung Foundry's 2nm tech could tilt the results in favor of its version of the AP regardless of clock speed.