If the technological battle with TSMC is now played on 3 nm engraving, Samsung would be ready to invest massively to expand its production capacities in 4 nm. The idea? Recover some of its lost customers, but also reduce its losses by focusing on a process that has long been compatible with mass production.
With a slight technological advantage over TSMC thanks to its new 3 nm GAA engraving (available on a small scale, of course, but launched a few months before the node 3 nm from the Taiwanese giant), Samsung is looking to take advantage of its lead to strengthen its position in 4 nm. According to information relayed by WCCFTechthe firm is currently looking to increase its production of 4nm chips thanks to a hearty investment of 3.8 billion dollars, according to Economic News Daily. The purpose of this sum would be to increase the production capacity within existing factories.
The objective for Samsung would be twofold: to try to bring back customers lost in recent months to TSMC (Qualcomm is the most striking example, but Supermicro and Huida can also be cited) thanks to more generous returns, but also to reduce its losses by betting on an already well-tested engraving process… unlike 3 nm, which remains for the moment much more marginal and therefore less profitable.
Samsung wants to convince its former customers to return to the fold
In detail, we learn that Samsung would plan to move to a production of 20,000 4 nm wafers per month. An increase which, however, may not be enough to bring customers like Qualcomm back to the fold. As a reminder, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was based on Samsung’s 4 nm engraving, but performance and overheating problems had led the American giant to turn to TSMC for its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus and for the future. Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
It is therefore difficult to see Qualcomm backtracking now, especially since TSMC’s 4 nm engraving has a better reputation and the Taiwanese founder’s production capacities are considerable. As pointed out WCCFTechSamsung’s total production capacity is only one-fifth of TSMC’s.
In the immediate future, Samsung can always count on the support of Google, which would continue to entrust it with the burning of its new Tensor chips. However, it will take more to allow the group to really weigh against TSMC on the market – orders from Google being, whatever one says, much lower than those from Qualcomm.
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