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Qualcomm’s $1.4 billion acquisition of chip startup Nuvia, which specializes in CPU and technology design, in March 2021 may come to fruition next year. Rumors are that the company will use its in-house Nuvia CPU cores in its 2024 flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. This year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will rely on ARM’s cores.
Rumors of Qualcomm using Nuvia cores in its flagship processors starting in 2024 first emerged in May. A noted tipster, who goes by the username Digital Chat Station on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo, claimed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be an octa-core chipset with a 2+6 dual-cluster CPU arrangement featuring Nuvia cores. The tipster also revealed the chip’s model number SM8750.
The same source has now shed a little more light on Qualcomm’s 2024 flagship processor. We now have the names of the CPU cores developed in-house by the company, i.e. by Nuvia. Those are called Phoenix. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will feature two Phoenix L cores and six Phoenix M cores. They added that Taiwanese foundry giant TSMC will manufacture the chip using its improved 3nm fabrication process (N3E).
Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will feature only two prime CPU cores
All major chip companies currently use ARM’s Cortex-branded CPU cores in their smartphone processors, including Qualcomm. Samsung experimented with custom Mongoose cores in its Exynos processors but it didn’t work. It stopped the practice and went back to stock ARM solutions a few years back.
With the growing demand for faster processors, these companies have gradually started using more high-performance CPU cores. For example, the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (octa-core chip) is rumored to feature an unusual quad-cluster CPU arrangement with only two base cores. However, none of them have been able to deliver a comparable performance to Apple’s A-series and M-series chips, let alone surpass them.
Qualcomm seemingly using only two prime CPU cores in its Nuvia-powered Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 suggests fully custom solutions would do the trick. There are already rumors that it’s faster than the Apple M2. Of course, the two chips will be multiple generations apart when Qualcomm’s solution arrives in late 2024. But a deviation from stock ARM cores might be the right way for chip companies to challenge Apple.
Samsung is also working on a custom processor for its Galaxy flagships. It’s unclear whether the Korean firm will develop custom CPU cores or use stock ARM solutions. However, the new chips will be optimized for Galaxy devices from the development stage. So Samsung might be able to deliver better performance than its current general-purpose Exynos processors that it also supplies to other brands. Samsung’s custom chip may debut in 2025.
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