News on March 9, Samsung had previously announced that its 3nm process has been developed and is expected to start trial production in the second quarter of this year, faster than TSMC's progress. Recently, South Korean media reported that Samsung has prepared to start construction of a 3nm fab at the P3 factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and is expected to start construction around June, when it will be able to import equipment and start trial production and commissioning.
Obviously, this progress is much slower than the time announced by Samsung, and it is expected that only small-scale mass production will be carried out by the end of the year. TSMC's 3nm process should also be able to start mass production before the fourth quarter of this year, so that the time between the two companies is almost the same, and large-scale mass production will be delayed until next year.
However, according to the news released by Samsung, its 3nm process uses more advanced GAA surround gate transistor technology, which will be more advanced than TSMC's FinFET transistor technology. In terms of performance, power consumption, chip area and other aspects, the paper parameters are better than TSMC's 3nm process.
Compared with the 7nm process, the chip logic area of Samsung's 3nm GAA process is increased by more than 45%, the power consumption is reduced by 50%, and the performance is improved by about 35%. If it can really reach such a level, it does have the opportunity to achieve cornering overtaking in 3nm technology and catch up with TSMC in one fell swoop. Previously, Samsung's 7nm, 5nm process performance is not as good as TSMC, Samsung is also the treasure on the 3nm process, and technology is also one step ahead, I hope this time can be greatly improved
Previously, there were rumors that TSMC's 3nm process production capacity had been predetermined by Apple and Intel in advance, and other manufacturers such as Qualcomm and AMD could not get much, so they were ready to turn Samsung 3nm. Qualcomm wants to use advanced technology for the first time, so it can only find Samsung. If Samsung's 3nm process can achieve theoretical performance, then Qualcomm's flagship chip also has the opportunity to usher in a wave of large performance improvements.
The semiconductor industry is becoming more and more competitive, and TSMC still dominates in advanced processes, while Apple, as its largest customer, always has the fastest access to the most advanced technology. For example, the A16 chip that will be used for the iPhone 14 in the second half of the year is likely to be the first to adopt the TSMC 3nm process, which is leading Qualcomm in terms of performance and process technology. The Android camp wants to make more progress and really has to look forward to a wave of Samsung.