Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced their intention to expand their decade-long foundry relationship into EUV (extreme ultra violet) lithography process technology, including the manufacture of future Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets using Samsung’s 7-nanometer (nm) LPP (Low Power Plus) EUV process technology.
 
Using 7LPP EUV process technology, Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets will offer a smaller chip footprint, giving OEMs more usable space inside upcoming products to support larger batteries or slimmer designs. Process improvements, combined with a more advanced chip design, are expected to bring significant improvements in battery life.
 
Last May, Samsung introduced 7LPP EUV, its first semiconductor process technology to use an EUV lithography solution. It is anticipated that EUV lithography deployment will break the barriers of Moore’s law scaling, paving the way for single nanometer semiconductor technology generations.
 
Compared to its 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung’s 7LPP EUV technology not only greatly reduces the process complexity with less process steps and better yield, but also allows up to a 40% increase in area efficiency with 10% higher performance or up to 35% lower power consumption.
 
“We are excited to lead the 5G mobile industry together with Samsung,” said RK Chunduru, SVP, supply chain and procurement, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.