In what may turn out to be the first major drawback for Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) in recent memory, the vendor’s upcoming Snapdragon 810 SoC is said to be running into overheating issues, which may cause significant production delays. The Snapdragon 810 is the frontrunner to power the innards of next year’s flagships from Samsung (KRX:005935), LG (KRX:066570), HTC (TPE:2498) and others.

The Snapdragon 810 boasts a lot of firsts: it will be the first high-end 64-bit SoC to come out of Qualcomm, and also the first to be built on a 20 nm manufacturing process. However, it looks like there may be serious issues with the SoC as Business Korea states that handset manufacturers are running into overheating issues when the Snapdragon 810 reaches certain voltages. These issues said to be “hard to solve,” and are said to be negatively affecting the performance of the chip.

Problems with the RAM controller and driver errors in the Adreno 430 GPU have also been cited by the publication. With Qualcomm becoming the go-to vendor for the high-end market, any setbacks in meeting its mass production deadlines would result in a significant delay when it comes to the launch of next year’s flagships. In a strange move, Qualcomm has decided to stick with stock ARM Cortex A57 and A53 cores in the Snapdragon 810 instead of offering a tailored version of these cores in the Krait series, as it has in the past.

News of Qualcomm’s delay may turn out be beneficial for Samsung, who is said to be considering its own GPU to its in-house line of Exynos SoCs. Samsung has been continually tweaking its Exynos line over the years, and if it is able to successfully create a viable contender that offers anywhere near the performance as that of Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs, it will have a winner on its hands.

As for other contenders, LG’s Nuclun efforts are yet to bear fruit, and while MediaTek (TPE:2454) is seeing a lot of traction in the entry-level and mid-tier segment, it does not have a foothold in the high-end market. Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has left the smartphone market entirely, and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is also said to be considering an exit following a failure to secure significant hardware wins.

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Last year, LG (KRX: 066570) was rumored to be working on an in-house SoC called Odin, which was said to be featured in the LG G3, the quad-HD smartphone LG unveiled earlier this year. However, that did not materialize, with LG content to use Qualcomm’s offerings in its devices. Earlier this year, it was leaked that the SoC was entering mass manufacturing, and will be available in devices later this year.

It looks like we’re getting close to the eventual launch of Odin, with the latest set of rumors indicating an October release for the first Odin-enabled device.It remains to be seen as to what has changed from the early Odin rumors, which suggested an four Cortex A15 cores and four Cortex A7 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. LG was said to be using a 28nm process, which, along with the ARMv7 processors, is outdated.

Silicon vendors like Samsung and TSMC have moved on to the 20nm process. Initial Odin benchmarks suggested performance close to that of the Snapdragon 800, which was the fastest SoC in the market at the time.

That isn’t the case, and all major vendors are now actively looking to offer 64-bit ARMv8-based SoCs. LG’s first Odin-powered device is claimed to be a 5.9-inch phablet, which could turn out to be the successor to the LG G Pro 2. Samsung has already launched its phablet this year in the Galaxy Note 4, and now it is time for LG to offer a device that goes head to head with Samsung’s offering. While the first Odin SoC was meant to be a high-end offering, there is no indication that LG will be sticking to its original plan.

Korean business publication Money Today posits that the upcoming 5.9-inch phablet may be the first in an entirely new product line. LG is also rumored to be focusing on emerging markets, so Odin may turn out to be a mid-tier SoC. There isn’t enough concrete information about the SoC as of now, but what is clear enough is that LG will look to offer new products next month, which is when we should have a better idea as to what Odin is all about.

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