Samsung Electronics, and Qualcomm Technologies today announced the intention to expand their decade-long foundry relationship into EUV (extreme ultraviolet) 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 with its 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung's 7LPP EUV technology greatly reduces the process complexity with fewer 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,” says Qualcomm Technologies supply chain and procurement senior vice president RK Chunduru.

“Using 7nm LPP EUV, our new generation of Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets will take advantage of the process improvements and advanced chip design to improve the user experience of future devices.

“We are pleased to continue to expand our foundry relationship with Qualcomm Technologies in 5G technologies using our EUV process technology,” says Samsung electronics foundry sales and marketing team Executive Vice President Charlie Bae.

“This collaboration is an important milestone for our foundry business as it signifies confidence in Samsung's process technology.