Samsung Electronics' new Galaxy S7 smaartphone is widely expected to be released next February and will be available in versions based on both the Qualcomm 820 and Exynos 8890 system on chips (SoCs). The South Korean company will market the Galaxy S7 powered by the Snapdragon 820 and the same model powered by the Exynos 8890 to different regions. According to Business Korea, expect Snapdragon 820-powered Galaxy S7 to be available in the U.S. and China, and the Galaxy S7 featuring the Exynos chip in Korea, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Samsung's decision to use the Qualcomm chip in the devices that will be shipped in the world's largest markets like the U.S. and China could be related to its foundery contract with Qualcomm. Qualcomm will use Samsung’s foundry to produce the latest 820 Snapdragon Application Processor.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 AP (more info here and here) includes download and upload speeds that measure up to 600 Mbps and 150 Mbps, respectively, 8 times faster than those of LTE. The chip is also equipped with technology features like next-generation HD voice, LTE Wi-Fi video calls, and Quick Charge 3.0, a fast-charging technology. Using the Adreno 530 GPU, the Snapdragon 820 is 40 percent faster than the Snapdragon 810, which uses an Adreno 430 GPU. Produced at the Samsung Electronics’ Nano factory, the Snapdragon 820 will also sport a 64-bit CPU core and Kryo.

Samsung has been reportedly working to solve the heating problem of the Qualcomm 820 AP. To prevent overheating, the company plans to modify microprocessor software, or even add heat-radiating pipes.

Besides the processor, Samsung's Exynos 8890 chip includes the world’s first modem using tri-band carrier aggregation (CA) and 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) technologies, and supports 600 Mbps downlink speed and Cat.11 LTE bandwidth. The previous Galaxy series, powered by 64 QAM and Exynos 333, has a maximum download speed of 450 Mbps. Compared to modem 333, which is manufactured through a 28 nm finFET process, the Exynos 8890, manufactured through a 14 nm finFET process, also proved better at energy savings.

Qualcomm’s fate is dependent on the success of the Snapdragon 820. The slump in earnings from the Snapdragon 810 puts Qualcomm in a terrible predicament, which led the company to lay off 15 percent of the company’s employee.

Microsoft is also conducting performance tests to use the Snapdragon 820 for at two new Lumina phones.