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Samsung Vs TSMC: Race For 3nm Chip Development

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Recently TSMC has announced that it will go ahead and work on producing a 2nm memory chip by 2025 to be the forerunner in the foundry and memory chip business. This move is to rival Samsung, which also announced in April this year that it will work on 2 nm by 2025.

Before this, Samsung also informed in April that it would start to work on the 3nm chips 3GAE (3 nm-class gate-all-around early) fabrication process, starting in mid-2022.

TSMC is expected to mass-produce the first-gen 3nm chips (N3) for its customers in early 2023 & 2nm by 2025. TSMC informed at TSMC Technology Symposium 2022 this Thursday.

However, before developing the 2nm technology, the TSMC will use advanced 3nm fabrication processes N3P, N3S, and N3X to produce a 3nm chip between 2023 and 2025. 18 This will result in an 18% percent performance increase at the same power while reducing power consumption to 34% if computing is kept consistent.

Intel also announced to reenter manufacturing business with a whopping 80B dollar investment in Arizona and Ohio last year and plans to work on the 1.8nm process starting 2025. 

Intel, Samsung, and TSMC are the only competent players in this business for mass production.

Although Samsung and intel are longtime rivals and friends at certain times, Intel has collaborated with TSMC but doesn’t want to share all its prowess in the foundry business with it, while Samsung is trying to outdo TSMC and Intel trying to enter the manufacturing business it seems a likely alliance could form as both can benefit from each other.

Samsung has likely got an advantage this time due to using a more advanced GAAFET (gate-all-around field-effect transistor) architecture compared to TSMC’s FinFET (fin field-effect transistor). Samsung will become the first manufacturer of semiconductors to start using gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) architecture with its upcoming 3 nm fabrication process. 

Samsung claims the process would enable a 30% performance increase, a 50% power consumption reduction, and up to 80% higher transistor density.

Another development favoring Samsung could be the meeting between Samsung & Intel’s President & CEO.respectively.

After visiting the DAVOS forum in Switzerland, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger met with Samsung vice-chairman Lee Jae Yong in the Samsung Seocho building in Seoul. Pat also visited several officials of Samsung, including the Co-Ceo and head of Samsung mobile. This meeting took place 10 days after the US president’s visit to S.Korea to Samsung’s electronic plant on May 20.

Targeting to produce at a mass level with wide reach, Samsung has both capability and will to make a market out of this, as we have seen before in many criteria. Also, not forget the recent CXL-based memory development by Samsung and collaborations with IBM, Intel, Montage Technology, AMD & others.

While this business is completely dominated by these three, the Chinese Semiconductor manufacturing Int, Co. also wants to compete. Japanese are working with the US on 2nm to complete by 2025.

The chipmaking tech is extremely difficult to put a complex process requiring precision, clean environments, expensive factory equipment, and time. It takes GlobalFoundries three months on average to engrave and transform mirror-smooth silicon wafers into layered semiconductors, not to mention the lower the nm(nanometer) more difficult it becomes to fit the no. of transistors in a wafer-thin silicon layer.

So, a lower nm transistor means less power is required for it to work. Lower power consumption makes a huge difference overall when you look at all the transistors in a CPU. It makes your processor more power-efficient than a higher nm processor with larger transistors.

Although TSMC has had superiority over Samsung, this time, Samsungs seems to show a promising future.

To learn more about this news, previous developments, and the mentioned technology, refer to the links below.

Sources & References:


Harsh is a seasoned technology enthusiast with a deep passion for Android. Since its announcement in 2007, he has closely followed the evolution of this operating system, gaining a comprehensive understanding of its features and capabilities. His background in Android, IT, and Journalism has equipped him with the skills to analyze and present complex technological concepts in a clear and engaging manner. As the Editor-in-Chief at Samlover.com, Harsh is dedicated to sharing his knowledge and experiences about Android, services, and applications with the world.

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Apple Could Lean On Other Brand For AI System: Here’s The Reason Behind Story

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iPhone users are already waiting for the next major software update, which is iOS 18. This time, the expectations are high from Apple, as there’s already a lot of buzz around iOS 18 regarding what new changes, improvements, and upgrades it will bring. Apart from all, as expected, it could be a major upgrade for Siri; somehow credit goes to Generative AI. 

Leaks and rumors are roaming around that Apple is actively gearing up for AI in iOS 18. The reports are reporting that Apple built its generative AI codenamed Apple GPT, but for this, the giants might use another brand’s system. The higher possibilities are from Google’s Gemini, ChatGPT of OpenAI, and Anthropic. 

Although it is expected that Apple, instead of depending on another brand completely, might use a mix of its own as well as external AI for iOS 18, Here mix stands for a homogenous mixture of third-party AI, Apple’s own AI, and a hybrid approach. As mentioned above, Apple may rely on the generative AI systems of Gemini, ChatGPT, or Anthropic, and all of these would probably be cloud-based for complex tasks. 

Apple’s own ‘Apple GPT’ could handle simpler tasks on the smartphones themselves and offers an improved and stronger layer of privacy as well as responsiveness. As per the reports of journalist Mark Gurman, it is reported that the Cupertino brand possibly permits the users to choose their AI assistant, the same as choosing a search engine, which means the users might get the power to choose Siri powered by AI systems; for instance, Gemini or ChatGPT. 

It’s pretty obvious that running powerful AI needs a lot of resources, but it seems that initially, Cupertino giants might want to avoid this. However, permitting users to choose between their AI assistants sounds unusual for Apple, but undoubtedly it could be advantageous for it in terms of revenue. The way Google pays Apple to be the default search engine, it’s quite possible that other AI brands could also pay Apple to be the preferred assistant on iPhones. Plus, this trick could also reduce costs. For instance, maintaining powerful AI requires a lot of resources, so by using a third-party system, Apple can easily tackle things. 

In short, the benefit behind this planning by Cupertino giants is that it avoids headaches in many ways, such as building AI for different regions, which is complex enough. Conversational AI can also be tricky regarding privacy and ethics. 

Apart from all this, nothing more reports have come to light, but it is expected that at WWDC 2024, more details regarding Apple’s AI plans and how third-party assistants might work will be revealed. 


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Samsung Ramps Up 3nm Chip Production to Compete with TSMC

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Samsung is eagerly trying to compete with the biggest chip manufacturer, TSMC. To do that, the company has increased the production of the 3nm chip. However, it is still not achieving the same yield rate as TSMC. 

According to a tipster, @Teck_Reve, Samsung’s initial yield rate was 10 to 20%, which has now increased by over threefold, but he didn’t mention the exact amount of production increase. 

If you don’t know about the yield rate, it is a measure of the usable chips manufactured at a facility. It is calculated as the percentage of the total number of chips produced. If the yield rate is high, the number of defective chips is low. Ultimstrly it mrsdutr the efficiency of the  chips production. 

The Korean giant has started making 3nm chips in 2022, but it has struggled to achieve the yield rate. It has transitioned from the FinFET transistor architecture to the more advanced GAA architecture, but Samsung hasn’t achieved the desired yield rate while at the same time the TSSMC, with the same 3nm fabrication manufacturing, has achieved the efficiency and has enjoyed the yield.

However, if the report is inaccurate, there are some positive signs that Samsung is trying to fill the gap between the efficiency of manufacturing. As per the tipster, the Korean giant is providing the 4nm chips, which employ the FinFET architecture. The power efficiency and logic area have increased by 20–30%. If this happens, the company will get a major advantage to edge the 3nm semiconductor market.

According to a recent report, Samsung has informed its customers about a rebranding of its 2nd-generation 3nm process. The company will call the 2nm process instead of the 2nd generation 3nm process, technically a 3 nanometer process, but the Korean firm is renaming it to 2nm. It is confusing that the company is taking this step, but the real 2nm chips will be available next year’s second quarter.


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Apple Is Being Accused By The US Government To Use Illegal Monopoly over smartphones

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Apple is in trouble. The US Department of Justice charged it with using an illegal monopoly in the smartphone industry. 

Apple is facing an accusation that it operated an illegal monopoly in the smartphone industry in a wide-ranging new antitrust lawsuit that seeks to upend multiple of the ways Apple locks down iPhones. 

The matter is that the US government, the DOJ, along with 16 state and district attorneys general, claims that Apple raises prices for consumers as well as developers, not only this but also restricts how application makers can operate on iPhones, and this is all just to keep users locked into their ecosystem. 

To make the case strong, the government points to different ways in which Apple has reportedly maintained its monopoly unlawfully: 

  • Apple has blocked cloud-streaming applications for video games, which would reduce the requirement for much more costly hardware. 
  • Disarranging “super apps” will encircle various programs and also make it easier for iPhone users to switch to competing devices, possibly degrading “iOS stickiness.” 
  • Apple overpowers the quality of messaging between the iPhone and Android. 
  • It makes the functionality of third-party smartwatches limited with its iPhones and makes it harder for users of Apple Watch to switch from the iPhone due to compatibility issues. 
  • It blocks third-party developers from creating competing digital wallets with tap-to-pay functionality for the iPhone. 

However, for years, Apple has continuously responded to competitive threads by imposing a series of claims against it. Apple denies all the claims of breaking the market rules and using illegal monopolies. And it will probably try to get the case dismissed.

After an investigation, the government admits the challenge of taking on a powerful brand such as Apple. However, this lawsuit also follows similar ones against Google and Microsoft. The conclusion of the case is that the court has ordered Apple to stop anti-competitive practices. 

Via – The Verge


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