Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus to debut in May 2022 with the OnePlus 10 Ultra
Although the OnePlus 10 Pro is yet to be released on 31st March, OnePlus already appear to be prepping the superior OnePlus 10 Ultra, with an announcement expected in late May or early June.
The OnePlus 10 Ultra will reportedly be the first phone to use Qualcomm’s revised Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus chip.
The previous chip suffered from various power and performance issues, and has been well regarded as a major flop, particularly when compared to Apple’s fast A15 offering with the iPhone 13.
Qualcomm have reportedly switched away from Samsung to TSMC’s superior 4nm process, which has a significant yield improvement at 70%. TSMC’s process is said to have drastically improved power efficiency and overheating issues.
However, the latest Cortex X2 core from ARM is said to be unexpectedly more power hungry, and may possibly negate any improvements gained by switching to TSMC. Qualcomm may be required to underclock the Cortex X2 to balance performance and power.
This may result in a near identical chip, with almost minimal performance gains and the same power efficiency issues. The Gen 1 Plus was rushed into production to fix these issues, and yet it appears Qualcomm is back to square one.
Whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus is intended as a minor revision, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is still on track for a Q3/Q4 2022 release date. Hopefully Qualcomm will have better luck on the third try, however by this time they will have to compete with the Apple A16 on the iPhone 14.