Samsung Semiconductor in recent years, the small days have been a little unsmooth.
If nothing else, the poor friend touched his mobile phone and looked at the 888 and 8gen1 of the Samsung fab foundry, which can be said to be a hand warmer in winter and a hot potato in summer.
The products that have been hard to manufacture have become the "street rats" that everyone shouts and beats, and the yield rate of chip production is not good.
Even Samsung itself wondered ah, after the taste, you said why my own chip process, yield rate will be so poor?
No, an investigation was launched last month, and the results have not yet been said.
And as one of the world's top ten semiconductor companies, when everyone is shouting about the lack of cores, Samsung has become the only company whose revenue fell in the first quarter...
Looking at the TSMC above, the envious face was green.
Therefore, Samsung, which can make cameras, mobile phones, systems, and chips, has suffered in the past few years?
The mobile phone industry has suffered a lot, the panel industry has been gradually challenged by domestic manufacturers, giving up their own chip architecture, even the world's only two energy production 5nm below the chip foundry industry, have been disliked so badly?
As a company that has been passed down for many years, Samsung's performance in pulling crotch in recent years can be said to be inseparable from infighting.
In the past few years, we can also brush up on a lot of such Samsung news, including what kind of yield rate is not enough to deceive and hide, what is the seniority ranking, and the departments still dislike each other... The unexpected ways of infighting that we can think of, Samsung may have tried.
This put Samsung prince anxious, in August 2021, after Li Zairong's "for the country" was released from prison, less than three months, there was a wave of personnel adjustments within the company.
Samsung Mobile, three CEOs of Samsung's Consumer Electronics and Device Solutions division were removed and the first two divisions were merged into the new division, SET.
After a while, Lee also transferred song Jae-hyuk, the previous leader of the flash development department, to the semiconductor research and development department as the latest head, and sent Nan Xiyu, vice president of global manufacturing and infrastructure of the semiconductor equipment solutions department, to become the head of the wafer foundry manufacturing technology center.
Sending these two generals who fought in the memory field in the past to the wafer foundry field, Samsung's intention to plot semiconductors can be said to be very obvious.
After all, it is already obvious what the outcome would be if there were infighting as in the past.
Even more terrifying than the decline in yield rate is to make buyers of advanced processes lose confidence.
Qualcomm and NVIDIA play the role of Samsung's big buyer here.
However, now one of these two has cooperated with TSMC to urgently launch 8+Gen1 to cope with the rise of MediaTek this year, and one announced that the next generation of 40 series game graphics cards will also be developed based on TSMC's N4 process.
Image source: wccftech▼
Not long ago, some media also got the 8+Gen1 engineering machine to test it, compared with the previous Samsung OEM 8Gen1... It also has a little higher performance and lower power consumption...
It is true that the crash is not terrible, who is worse than who is embarrassed.
Source Geek Bay▼
Bad reviewers also heard a chip industry hell joke:
In the past, everyone made chips, it was a hand to pay money, the other hand according to the number of wafers consumed to produce for you, each family has its own yield rate, how many chips can be made all by the yield rate to touch the award, everyone has been safe for many years.
And to the Samsung side, because the yield rate is really not a compliment. So they become calculated according to how many chips can actually be produced in the end...
One hand to hand over the money, the other hand to the chip.
。。。 It is indeed to make Samsung wonder why the yield rate is so poor.
Of course, the chip process, defeat also technology, into the technology.
After all, the names of 5nm and 4nm are still more of a name used by manufacturers to promote their own process nodes, and there is no absolute physical meaning.
Why Samsung is so embarrassed now, largely because the latest chip is not as good as the next door TSMC, yield rate, power consumption, transistor density can not do others.
Density map of each process, source: Digtimes▼
Therefore, if the next time Samsung makes a chip yield is better, the power consumption is lower, and the transistor density is better, then these annoying problems will not be solved.
Coincidentally, Samsung thinks the same way, and the future they bet on is 3nm technology.
Samsung will be the world's first fab to enter the GAA structure.
What is GAA? Simply put, it is likely to be the next generation of transistor technology that will be used on our mobile phone SoCs.
In recent years, with the evolution of Moore's Law, the chip has become smaller and smaller, and the power consumption of the transistor has become lower and lower, but as the transistor has become smaller and smaller, the new problem - leakage of electricity has also arrived as scheduled.
As chip design enters the nanofield, the leakage problem of static power consumption begins to turn over.
For example, if you think of a transistor as a "switch", the leakage problem is like the switch is not connected, but there will still be leakage current.
This is the "short channel effect", and to reduce the leakage power it brings, it is necessary to find new structures or new materials.
After the chip was made to 22nm, the technology used was called FinFET (Fin Field Effect Transistor).
By increasing the contact area by "embedding", better leakage control performance is obtained, a bit like making a two-dimensional transistor in the previous one-dimensional way.
And now the chip is getting smaller and smaller, and the FinFET is not enough to achieve the threshold of 3nm.
And this time, the big guys have freed up the problem to solve the problem of a new future process called GAA (full-ring gate transistor).
It's a bit like two-dimensional to three-dimensional, and the three-sided wrapping of FinFET becomes a four-sided circumference, so that you can net the electrons that are trying to move.
According to Samsung's report, compared with its own 7nm process, the initial version of its own GAA, 3GAE (3nm Gate-All _ Around Early), can reduce chip area by 35%, improve performance by 30%, and reduce power consumption by 50%.
This cake looks very fragrant... 30% faster performance and 50% lower power consumption... With this ascension, the fire dragon must not obediently lie down and turn us into an ice dragon.
Why don't you, wait, wait, why are you compared to the 2017 mass production of 7nm process than 3nm, why not significantly closer to 4nm?
Well, in fact, Samsung also gave the technical comparison of the 3nm and 4nm processes, but - not completely.
The comparison chart is indeed given to one, but... And only this one, this horizontal and vertical scale ruler? What are the starting units of comparison?
You're telling me how much stronger?
I see you don't understand it at all. jpg
As the "first crab eater" in the GAA field, we can understand that Samsung will face many technical challenges.
But you look at the time when Samsung plans to mass-produce 3nm, the second quarter of 2022.
Originally, its own 5nm and 4nm were somewhat water-injected compared to TSMC, and it was somewhat backward in the density of transistors.
I don't know if Samsung can compete with TSMC's high-density mature finFETs or not, and may have to put a question mark on whether the original GAA, which is "catching ducks on the shelves".
In the past, the first products of the new process iteration node also appeared that the performance of the actual experience was not as good as that of the previous generation of process enhancement node products. (e.g. Intel 10nm and 14++)
In addition to the difference in the technical routes of the two companies, Samsung wants to achieve a counterattack against TSMC in the 3nm or 2nm stage, and it also has to pass the level of lithography machine.
In this regard, TSMC and ASML can be said to have a deep revolutionary comrade-in-arms friendship.
20 years ago, ASML was still unknown in the field of lithography, relying on the in-depth cooperation with TSMC and meeting the right person at the right time.
Together, the two companies developed 193nm immersion lithography. Drove out the former lithography giant Nikon.
From 45nm 20 years ago to 7nm process in previous years, it relied on infiltration lithography technology.
Samsung is not like TSMC has this relationship, so I have to look at the lithography machine and look for another way.
You can see that not long after the prison, Lee Jae-yong, who had just finished rectifying the interior, went to European countries last week, did not stay long elsewhere, and ran directly to the Netherlands to talk and laugh with the asml senior management and the Dutch prime minister.
The purpose of all this is for the latest EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Light) lithography machine.
In general, although Samsung has lost the opportunity in the 5nm and 4nm markets today, it does not mean that it has completely lost the opportunity to fight back.
After all, the chip industry is an extremely competitive market, and if the former top brand takes the wrong step, it may lose its leading edge in the next generation of processes.
What if the 3nm FinFET of The Accumulated Power really rolls over because it can't control the power consumption?
"There is no eternity in kingship", in this industry, the leader takes a fork in the road can be described as a common thing.
In the past, Intel behind the 14nm process door was so, and now, Samsung in front of the 7nm door is also the same, and in the future, TSMC that still insists on using FinFETs on the 3nm threshold may also be the same.
But in any case, it is unreliable to pin the opportunity to turn over on others to overturn the car.
More than halfway through the Q2 quarter of 2022, there is not much time left for Samsung.