Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 chipset, which has been manufactured on the 20 nm process, is under severe criticism due to the SoC's overheating issues. Since the chipset is overheating, it forces the processor's clock speeds to reduce in order to prevent irreparable damage to the smartphone and the remainder of the components. Primarily the inferior manufacturing process and the power hungry quad-core Cortex-A57 processor are culpable for these issues, so Qualcomm wants to avoid such obstacles by proceeding with incorporating chipsets in smartphones on a lower manufacturing process.
The 14 nm FinFET process is what Qualcomm will be using for its Snapdragon 820 and Snapdragon 620. Currently Samsung and GlobalFoundaries (thanks to a partnership with Samsung) are the only two entities that can provide mobile chipsets on the 14 nm FinFET process and it looks like Qualcomm's mid-performing SoC is also going to sport the feature.
According to GizmoChina, Snapdragon 620 will use the 14 nm FinFET and will most likely possess an LPE (Low Power Enhanced) feature. Unlike Snapdragon 820, which is going to be manufactured on LPP (Low Power Plus), Snapdragon 620 is going to be incorporated in to mid-ranged handsets carrying affordable price tags. The LPE function will be used to greatly reduce power consumption in order to save sufficient amounts of battery life.
The superior 14 nm FinFET process was displayed in Samsung's Exynos 7420, which is incorporated in the company's Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge handsets. When pitted against Snapdragon 810, Exynos 7420 is able to obtain a larger score in AnTuTu's benchmarking application, even though the chipset is unable to exceed that score in the GPU test, which is dominated by Snapdragon 810's Adreno 430 GPU.
Regardless, the overheating issues ends up reducing the overall lifespan and battery life of the smartphone, which does not play well when a consumer wants to future proof their handset for a couple of years. With the 14 nm FinFET process, Qualcomm might finally be able to get rid of the overheating issues of Snapdragon 810.
