Over the past few years, Samsung has struggled to surpass TSMC in the semiconductor chip manufacturing business. While it hoped to one-up its Taiwanese rival with 3nm chips, some reports claimed its yield is far too low. However, the South Korean firm claims there are no issues in its 3nm process.
Samsung claims its 3nm chip production has stable performance and yield
The company held the Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) and Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem Forum (SAFE) at the Convention & Exhibition Center (COEX) in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. During the event, the company's executives claimed that the production of chips using its second-generation 3nm process is “proceeding as planned based on stable performance and yield.”
This shows Samsung's confidence in its second-generation 3nm process, which uses the Gate All Around (GAA) transistor architecture. However, it remains to be seen how chips made using this process perform in real life.
So far, AMD, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm haven't signed a contract to use Samsung's new 3nm process for their chips. There have been rumors about AMD and Qualcomm being interested in Samsung Foundry's 3nm process. However, none of those companies have yet announced anything about using that process.
TSMC, though, seems to be faring much better. Apple, Google, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm have either used or been reported to be interested in its 3nm processes.
Exynos W1000 is first chip made using Samsung Foundry's second-gen 3nm process
Samsung has already showcased the first chip made using its new 3nm process. It is the Exynos W1000, which has a five-core CPU (one Cortex-A78 CPU core and four Cortex-A55 CPU cores) and the Mali-G68 MP2 GPU. Thanks to Samsung's new advanced packaging technologies, memory, storage, and power ICs are integrated into the same package.
The new chip offers 2.7x faster app opening times and 3.4x-3.7x faster CPU performance. It is used in the Galaxy Watch 7 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra, which are expected to be announced later today.
