Samsung Foundry unveils its roadmap for the next few years for the production of chips for smartphones. The company shows its great ambitions after being regularly criticized for its Exynos chips.
Samsung is a major player in the production of chips for smartphones. The South Korean company notably produces its own Exynos SoCs. However, the latter have long suffered from the comparison with Qualcomm’s Snpadragon, both in terms of power and energy efficiency. And this, to the point where an obvious annoyance rumbled in the ranks of consumers in Europe where the Galaxy S smartphones were equipped with Exynos while the rest of the world benefited from models under Snapdragon.
Things changed at the start of 2023: the European Galaxy S23, S23 Plus and S23 Ultra were equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to no longer make anyone jealous. Yes, but here it is: Qualcomm relied on the Taiwanese TSMC for the manufacture of the SD8 Gen 2 and it should be the same for the future Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 whose announcement is expected at the end of October. This is not necessarily pleasing for Samsung.
Indeed, the South Korean giant has already manufactured chips for Qualcomm in the past and probably does not want to lose this important customer for good. More generally, to regain a good brand image and reduce its dependence on third-party players, Samsung might want to regain some momentum in the smartphone chip market.
The Samsung Foundry roadmap
With this in mind, it is therefore interesting to observe the announcements made by the company during the very recent Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF). The firm unveiled its roadmap for the next few years.
We thus remember that Samsung Foundry will launch, in 2025, the mass production of chips for smartphones with a 2 nm process. The group promises an improvement in performance and energy efficiency of 12 and 25% respectively compared to the 3 nm process. As an indication, remember that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is engraved in 4 nm and the 8 Gen 3 should be in 3 nm.
Boost production
In the process, in 2027, Samsung plans to launch mass production of SoCs with a 1.4 nm process. In addition, the company sets up a new production unit in the United States, in Texas. Combined with the opening of a new production line in the Pyeontaek factory in South Korea, this will allow a production yield multiplied by 7.3 according to Samsung’s calculations.
Finally, Samsung says it will continue to rely on its GAA (“gate-all-around”) technology inaugurated on its 3 nm process. This relies on nanosheets instead of nanowires to conduct the electric current and this notably makes it possible to adjust the width of the channels to improve the use of energy. However, this techniquewill be instrumental in meeting the needs of our customers who use artificial intelligence applications“Samsung explains.
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