Being the manufacturer of the Snapdragon 835 processor, Samsung had a deal with Qualcomm, which allowed the company to keep the initial batch of the chipset for its Galaxy S8 series. If a new report is to be believed, Samsung will have a similar deal for the Snapdragon 845 as well, which is expected to power the upcoming Galaxy S9 and S9+ handsets.
If Qualcomm again resorts to Samsung for manufacturing the new Snapdragon 845, the South Korean tech giant will once again keep the initial batch of the processor for the Galaxy S9 series, SamMobile reported. If the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will indeed by the first handsets to feature Snapdragon 845, rival manufacturers may have to wait for another flagship cycle to get the chipset for their upcoming devices.
While there is not much technical details available for the Snapdragon 845 processor, some earlier reports claimed that it is expected to get manufactured through 10nm Low Power Early (LPE) FinFET process. The processor is also said to incorporate a combination of Cortex A75 cores, Adreno 630 graphics and X20 LTE modem.
A report said last month that Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 system-on-chip will be clocked at 2.5GHz, suggesting that the upcoming chip may not offer a significant improvement over its predecessor. The existing Snapdragon 835 processor clocks at 2.45GHz.
The Snapdragon 845 processor also recently appeared in its first alleged GeeBench4 benchmarks with a score of 2600+ for single core results. In comparison, the Apple A9 scored around 2500 while the new A10 Fusion scored 3000+.
In addition to Samsung's Galaxy S9, Xiaomi's Mi 7 was also rumoured to be the first device to feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 processor. According to some reports, the Chinese smartphone maker was working with Qualcomm to optimise what is called "Snapdragon 845 v2" for the Mi 7.
When it comes to the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, Samsung is expected to launch the duo early next year. Some reports even have said that the Galaxy S9 series could be launched a month earlier than usual.
A recently leaked listing of firmware codes suggested that Samsung Galaxy S9 may be available in two models, with model numbers including SM-G965 and SM-G960.
