Samsung’s foundry department has been negative recently. It was reported that some employees were suspected of forging and falsely reporting the yield rate of 5nm, 4nm and 3nm process processes, so VIP customers like Qualcomm had to leave and use TSMC to produce Snapdragon 8 again. processor.
However, from a technical point of view, Samsung is still the only wafer foundry that can closely follow TSMC. Although it lags behind on the 7nm, 5nm and 4nm nodes, Samsung is more aggressive in the next 3nm node and wants to launch GAA transistors for the first time in the world. process, abandoning the FinFET transistor technology, and TSMC’s 3nm process will still be based on the FinFET process.
Samsung previously stated that GAA is a new type of gate-around transistor, and MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET) is fabricated by using nanosheet devices. This technology can significantly enhance transistor performance, mainly Replacing FinFET transistor technology.
According to Samsung, compared with the 7nm manufacturing process, the 3nm GAA technology improves the logic area efficiency by more than 45%, reduces power consumption by 50%, and improves performance by about 35%. On paper, it is better than TSMC. 3nm FinFET process.
Of course, these are still on paper. Samsung’s 3nm process has many challenges, and mass production alone is a problem. Samsung previously announced that mass production will begin in 2021, but in fact, it does not. The fastest is this year, and the first release is 3GAE. Low-power process, high-performance 3GAP process will be at least 2023.
According to South Korean media reports, Samsung is preparing to start construction of a 3nm wafer fab at its P3 factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. The construction will start in June and July, and the equipment will be imported in time.
According to this progress, this year’s 3GAE process should only be a small-scale trial production, and mass production will not be until next year, which is similar to TSMC’s 3nm process.