Capping off a multi-year improvement course of, Samsung’s foundry group sends phrase this morning that the corporate has formally kicked off manufacturing on its preliminary 3nm chip manufacturing line. Samsung’s 3nm course of is the business’s first business manufacturing course of node utilizing gate-all-around transistor (GAAFET) expertise, marking a significant milestone for the sphere of silicon lithography, and doubtlessly giving Samsung a significant enhance in its efforts to compete with TSMC.
The comparatively spartan announcement from Samsung, which comes on the ultimate day of Q2, declares that Samsung has begun manufacturing of chips on a GAAFET-enabled 3nm manufacturing line. The corporate is just not disclosing the particular model of the node used right here, however primarily based on earlier Samsung roadmaps, that is undoubtedly Samsung’s preliminary 3GAE course of – basically, Samsung’s earliest course of node inside a household. In keeping with Samsung, the road will initially be used to provide chips for “excessive efficiency, low energy computing”, with cellular processors to return later. Samsung’s early course of nodes are historically reserved for the corporate’s inner use, so whereas Samsung isn’t asserting any particular 3nm chips at the moment, it’s solely a matter of time till we see a 3nm SoC declares from Samsung LSI.
Samsung has, for probably the most half, been quiet about its progress on 3nm/GAAFET this 12 months. The final important information we heard from the corporate on the matter was a number of months in the past on the firm’s Foundry Discussion board occasion, the place the corporate reiterated plans to get 3GAE into manufacturing by the top of 2022. Given the earlier silence and the cutting-edge nature of the expertise, there had been greater than some concern that 3GAE could be delayed previous 2022 – including on to delays that pushed the tech out of its authentic 2021 launch window – however with at the moment’s announcement Samsung appears to need to put that to relaxation.
With that stated, the satan is within the element in these bulletins, particularly as to what’s stated versus not stated. Taken actually, at the moment’s announcement from Samsung notably doesn’t embrace any point out of “excessive quantity” manufacturing, which is the normal milestone for when a course of node is prepared for business use. So by merely saying 3nm is in manufacturing, Samsung’s announcement leaves the corporate with a good bit of wiggle room almost about simply what number of chips they’re able to producing – and at what yields. The corporate was producing check chips again in 2021, so the matter is extra nuanced than simply firing up the fab, so the road between PR and productization is fuzzy, to say the least.
Nonetheless, at the moment’s announcement is a significant second for Samsung, who has been engaged on 3nm/GAAFET expertise since earlier than 2019, once they initially introduced the expertise. Samsung’s particular taste of GAA transistor expertise is Multi Bridge Channel FET (MBCFET), which is a nanosheet-based implementation. Nanosheet-based FETs are extraordinarily customizable, and the width of the nanosheet is a key metric in defining the facility and efficiency traits: the upper the width, the upper the efficiency (at larger energy). Because of this, transistor designs that target low energy can use smaller nanosheets, whereas logic that requires larger efficiency can go for the broader sheets.
Together with at the moment’s manufacturing announcement, Samsung has additionally supplied some up to date dimension and efficiency figures evaluating 3GAE to older nodes. Formally, 3GAE can supply 45% diminished energy consumption or 23% improved efficiency in comparison with Samsung’s 5nm course of (the corporate doesn’t state which taste), with an total discount in function dimension of 16%. These figures are notably totally different from Samsung’s earlier (2019) figures, which in contrast the tech to Samsung’s 7LPP node. Given the change in baselines, it’s not clear at this level whether or not 3GAE resides as much as Samsung’s preliminary claims, or in the event that they’ve needed to again off a bit for the preliminary model of their 3nm expertise.
What is evident, nevertheless, is that Samsung has extra important enhancements in thoughts for the second iteration of 3nm, which we all know is 3GAP(lus). In keeping with at the moment’s press launch, Samsung is anticipating a 50% energy discount or 30% efficiency enchancment versus the identical 5nm baseline, with a a lot higher 35% space discount. Immediately’s announcement doesn’t supply a date for 3GAP, however per earlier roadmaps, 3GAP is anticipated to land round a 12 months after 3GAE. 3GAP can be after we anticipate to see Samsung open the door to outdoors clients, although given the cruel aggressive surroundings, nothing must be taken as a right.
Samsung Course of Roadmap (July 2021)
The launch of Samsung’s 3nm course of tech comes as the corporate is working to regain its footing towards arch rival TSMC, who has clearly pulled into the lead within the 5nm/4nm era. The hole between TSMC and Samsung has been large sufficient that main clients reminiscent of Qualcomm have been porting high-performance chips just like the Snapdragon 8 collection from Samsung to TSMC, and at this level Samsung has seen few main 5nm/4nm wins in comparison with TSMC. If the whole lot goes nicely, being the primary fab with GAAFET tech may give Samsung a temporary-but-material benefit over TSMC, whose 3nm course of remains to be utilizing older FinFET-style transistors. However with the intention to pull that off, Samsung might want to reverse their earlier technical issues and ship a performant, high-yielding course of that’s far sufficient forward to woo skeptical clients.
