Qualcomm to use 7nm process to build Snapdragon 855

Qualcomm's latest high-end chip - the Snapdragon 845, and the one before it - the Snapdragon 835 were built using the 10nm processing. While the company has already confirmed that its next flagship chip will be built using the 7nm process, a new leak has confirmed that it will be.

The leak comes in a form of a job description of one of the contractors working on the development of the SoC, which is built on the 7nm process. The leak was shared by Roland Quandt on Twitter. Samsung is handling the production of the chip, but if the rumors are to be believed, TSMC will manufacture the Snapdragon 855.

Qualcomm won't say it, but their contractors do. Snapdragon 855 (SDM855) is the first 7nm SoC. (probably the one the X24 modem ends up in) pic.twitter.com/Ot1J34fQoG

— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) 15 February 2018

Besides, the company also announced the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem. It is world's first announced category 20 LTE modem which supports up to 2GBps (Gigabytes per second) and is the first announced chip built on 7 Nanometer FinFET process.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X24 LTE modem is the company's eighth-generation LTE multimode modem and third generation Gigabit LTE solution. The chipset includes advanced cellular features compared to any commercially available 4G LTE modem to date.

This strengthens the LTE foundation for future 5G multimode devices and networks. Qualcomm has further confirmed that the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem would be demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tech show along with the Ericsson, Telstra, and Netgear. As per Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem provides a speed which is double than the company's first Generation Gigabit LTE modem.

The Snapdragon X24 supports up to 7x carrier aggregation in the downlink. The chipset further expands the use of 4x4 MIMO on up to five carriers. On Qualcomm's blog post company official commented that "With the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem's fiber-like Internet speeds delivered wirelessly, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can offer consumers incredible mobile experiences such as immersive 360-degree video, connected cloud computing, rich entertainment and instant apps.

At the same time, operators can gain flexibility in using their spectrum assets to offer blazing fast speeds to consumers, while also improving their network capacity and maximizing spectral efficiency. The X24 LTE modem allows smartphones to utilize all spectrum assets which are available from a mobile operator, whether in the licensed spectrum or with License Assisted Access (LAA).