Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 820 performance powerhouse is going to be made mainly in Samsung's foundries, using the latest 14nm production process, that much we've heard already. There have been rumors that future iterations of Snapdragon 820 will come at 10nm, but that seems a bit far-fetched, and more suited for a Snapdragon 830 chip, whenever this one is planned for.
Thanks to a leakster account on Weibo that has been spilling the beans on upcoming chipsets for a few months with a good track record, we are now learning that Snapdragon 820 will likely be produced with Samsung's second generation 14nm process. The first 14nm chipsets, such as the Exynos 7420 in the Galaxy S6, or the Apple A9 in the iPhone 6s, are apparently using the "early" Low Power Enhanced (LPE) nodes, that are introductory for the process, while the next stage is 14nm Laser-Produced Plasma (LPP) chips.
The LPP process offers higher performance within even smaller power envelope, but Samsung is yet striving for sufficient yield, tips the source, which might be why we have yet to see phones with Snapdragon 820 announced. In any case, Qualcomm's latest high-end silicon is shaping up to be a worthy replacement for the maligned Snapdragon 810, so we will be all ears for the first tests and benchmarks coming from a retail device.
