Snapdragon 835 now official as Qualcomm teams up with Samsung over 10nm process

Qualcomm collaborated with Samsung over the 14nm Snapdragon 820 and 821, and the company is continuing to work with the South Korean foundry over its next-gen SoC, the Snapdragon 835.

The Snapdragon 835 will be built on Samsung's 10nm FinFET node, which entered mass production in October. The node shrink allows for up to 30% increase in area efficiency with 27% higher performance, but those figures aren't indicative of performance gains over the Snapdragon 821. The smaller footprint gives handset manufacturers the headroom to add larger batteries or opt for thinner designs.

From Keith Kressin, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm:

We are excited to continue working together with Samsung in developing products that lead the mobile industry.Using the new 10nm process node is expected to allow our premium tier Snapdragon 835 processor to deliver greater power efficiency and increase performance while also allowing us to add a number of new capabilities that can improve the user experience of tomorrow's mobile devices.

The Snapdragon 835 is now in production, and will make its way into consumer devices in the first half of 2017.

Harish Jonnalagadda
Senior Editor - Asia

Harish Jonnalagadda is a Senior Editor overseeing Asia at Android Central. He leads the site's coverage of Chinese phone brands, contributing to reviews, features, and buying guides. He also writes about storage servers, audio products, and the semiconductor industry. Contact him on Twitter at @chunkynerd.