Leaked documents reveal that Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will have two different variants: TSMC 4nm and 3nm

This news comes from the South Korean blog gamma0burst. The blog has shared leaked email conversations between Qualcomm and their partners. In the leaked documents, Qualcomm declared that the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will utilize the latest CPU cores, including Cortex X4, Cortex A720, and Cortex A520, from ARM for its CPU architecture.

But what's intriguing is that Qualcomm also shared in the email that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC (SM8650) set to launch will have two variants, one manufactured on TSMC's N4P 4nm process node and another variant produced on TSMC's 3nm process.

According to Gizmochina, it's no surprise that Qualcomm is creating 2 different variants of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor for flagship Android devices in 2024, as the company has done so multiple times in the past.

Previously, the company released two premium Snapdragon processors in 2022, namely Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The main difference between these processors lies in the process node they are manufactured on. Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 standard was produced on Samsung's 4nm process. At that time, this process was notorious for being too hot and inefficient in energy usage. In contrast, Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, released later, was manufactured on TSMC's 4nm process, providing up to 30% better energy efficiency with lower smartphone temperatures.

It's unclear whether the two TSMC variants of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will be named differently as standard and Plus versions in 2024. However, it will be very interesting to see the performance and energy efficiency differences between the two variants. Let's wait and see!