As expected, Samsung Foundry is starting to ship its first batches of chips engraved using its new 3 nm GAA process. An important step for the group, which thus takes a step ahead of its competitor TSMC.
The event is important, important enough for Samsung to devote a ceremony to it in the company of a few Korean politicians. As planned on its schedule, the firm announced on July 25 to kick off the first shipments of chips engraved in 3 nm, using GAA (Gate-All-Around) transistors. This new process, which Samsung Foundry is currently the only one to use, allows the firm to take a small technological lead over its eternal rival TSMC.
WCCFTech points out, however, that Samsung reserves this first batch of energy-efficient 3nm chips for cryptocurrency miners. The mass production that will take place a little later will this time concern manufacturers of SoCs for smartphones.
Samsung relishes this moment
“On July 25, Samsung Electronics held a delivery ceremony of a 3nm foundry product using GAA (Gate All Around) next-generation transistor technology on Line V1 (EUV only) of Hwaseong Campus, Gyeonggi-do. . Around 100 people attended the event, including the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy, Changyang Lee (…)“Relates Samsung in its press release.
In fact, Samsung’s 3 nm GAA engraving should be used for the manufacture of future Exynos 2300. Qualcomm may also use it for its next Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (expected on part of the Galaxy S23 range, in beginning of 2023). That said, the thing is far from done: to convince Qualcomm to return to Samsung Foundry, TSMC would have to be impacted by performance problems with its future 3 nm engraving. Because as a reminder, Qualcomm abandoned Samsung Foundry a few months ago in favor of TSMC, which engraves the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus.
TSMC, for its part, must begin mass production of its 3 nm chips at the end of the year, but Apple will probably be the first served. Production will concern the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips expected at the end of 2022 on the next MacBook Pro 14 and 16. Nvidia should also benefit from it for its future GeForce RTX 4000.
Samsung Foundry’s 3 nm GAA engraving must offer up to 45% more energy efficiency, but also a 23% increase in performance compared to the 5 nm process. The chips engraved by Samsung using this new process should also be 16% smaller.
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