Qualcomm provides the chips behind a wide range of the world's most popular smartphones, but that doesn't make it necessarily a household name outside of tech circles.

Making its own phones, though, or at least taking a more active hand in the creation of a device, could perhaps change that. In fact, that could well be one part of the logic behind reports that Qualcomm might be working hand-in-hand with Asus on a forthcoming phone aimed squarely at mobile gamers. 

From the sounds of it, Asus would be very much taking the lead when it comes to the phone's design and hardware, as you'd expect, while Qualcomm would take an active role in shaping its software to better utilise a Snapdragon processor. 

That processor could be the Snapdragon 875, a new chip that's expected to possibly launch at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit in December, later this year. 

It's possible that the new gaming smartphone will be shown off at launch to demonstrate the new chipset's capabilities, although the expectation is that it would only become widely available in 2021, along with the other phones rocking the new Snapdragon. 

Asus already has some real experience in the gaming phone arena off the back of its ROG Phone lineup, which has so far seen three generations of device hit the market, so would seem like a safe pair of hands to build another phone for Qualcomm.