In 2017, the big kahuna as far as mobile chips is concerned will be Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835; but although Qualcomm designed the architecture for this SoC, it is being produced by Samsung using the 10 nanometre FinFET microarchitecture. Funnily enough, however, a report from Forbes suggests that Samsung has bought up the majority of Snapdragon 835 units for its own Galaxy S8 flagship, leaving nothing for the likes of LG, HTC, and the rest; it's thought that until after Galaxy S8 hits the market in April, we won't see any other Snapdragon 835 handsets until supply catches up.

Anyway, all of this is a preamble to the fact that processors using 10nm semiconductor technology are currently the best of the best (the lower number means smaller semiconductors which run faster, cooler, and more battery efficient), and the current cream of the crop is built by Samsung.

However, the news today is that Samsung has already begun rolling forward with ambitions to produce 7nm CPU architecture in only a year's time. The info comes via ZDNET Korea, which reports that although Samsung only began producing 10nm architecture in November 2016 (mostly so it could build the S835, it would seem), plans are already in place for a similar gearing up for 7nm production beginning in late 2017 with a view to such hardware hitting the market in early 2018.

The report says that Samsung LSI's (its chip division) managing director, Dr Heo Kuk, has said the firm "will maximize the advantages of EUV (extreme ultraviolet exposure equipment) in the 7-nanometer process and secure competitiveness in terms of performance and power consumption."

"Samsung Electronics succeeded in mass-producing the industry first, strengthening cutting-edge process competitiveness from 14nm, and aiming to produce 7nm in early 2018," Dr Kuk said, adding that Samsung "will lead the most advanced technology with the same competitiveness as 14nm and 10nm."

With that kind of timeframe, we can easily expect 2018's Galaxy S flagship, probably the Galaxy S9, to carry a 7nm processor, though whether it will be a Qualcomm design or one of Samsung's own Exynos chips remains to be seen. At the same time, it's not yet clear whether Samsung's Galaxy S8 will primarily use Qualcomm hardware or if, as with most previous years, there will be a split between international and Asian models with some using Qualcomm Snapdragon and others using Exynos. To make matters even more confusing, depending on which design is considered "better" in a given year, Samsung has in the past switched from making the international variant Qualcomm based to making it Exynos based and vice versa!