Since the launch of Google’s first in-house smartphone chip, the company has relied on Samsung Foundry for chip fabrication. The South Korean firm made four generations of Tensor chips for Google. However, it looks like Samsung will be out of Google’s equation for at least the next five years, starting this year.
TSMC might make Tensor chips for Google for five years
According to a report from DigiTimes, Google has picked TSMC to make Tensor chips for the next three to five years, at least until the launch of the Pixel 14 series. The first Tensor chip fabricated by the Taiwanese firm will debut later this year with the Pixel 10 series, and it will be called the Tensor G5. It will use TSMC’s 3nm process, which makes it on par with flagship chips from Apple, MediaTek, and Qualcomm.
Apparently, Google’s executives flew down to Taiwan a few months ago to discuss future plans for Tensor chipsets with TSMC. The two companies reportedly made a multi-year deal that will last at least until 2029.
Samsung Foundry has been losing all its big fabless semiconductor chip clients to TSMC. It all started with Apple way back in late 2015 when Apple decided to exclusively go with TSMC for the production of the A9X. Since then, every single Apple chip was made by TSMC. Then, Qualcomm switched to TSMC with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Nvidia, too, switched from Samsung to TSMC for RTX 4000 series GPUs two years ago.
It is reported that some clients are having second thoughts with Samsung Foundry, as they think their chip designs could be stolen by System LSI, Samsung’s in-house chip design division that makes Exynos chips for Samsung’s phones, tablets, and smartwatches. There have been talks about spinning off Samsung Foundry as a separate business, but nothing is certain yet.
