Tech
Samsung Vs TSMC: Race For 3nm Chip Development
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.
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The U.S. and the European Union (EU) have sponsored heavily around $81 billion for developing next-generation semiconductors, mounting strong competition in the industry.
The report says governments around the world have consigned an overall $380 billion with US and EU benefaction and a combined $81 billion to raising production by companies such as Intel and TSMC. Talking about the dedicated investment of the US in boosting domestic semiconductor production, it appears to be $52.7 billion over the next five years.
Under the Semiconductor Support Act, the U.S. plans to offer a total of $52.7 billion, including $39 billion in production subsidies and $13.2 billion in research and development (R&D) support. Apart from this, the US has confirmed subsidies of $8.5 billion for Intel. $6.6 billion for TSMC, $6.4 billion for Samsung Electronics, and $6.1 billion for Micron.
On the other hand, the EU decided to invest about $46.3 billion in powering semiconductor manufacturing authorities within the region. Based on this investment, the EU estimates that over $108 billion will be invested in both the public and private sectors.
In short, the US and EU are building strong competition in the industry for next-generation semiconductors. The US is playing a strategic game by partnering with the EU, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, especially against China. The EU is offering subsidies for Intel and TSMC factories in Germany; however, the final license is pending.
China is estimated to be financing the cost at more than $142 billion, which includes a new $27 billion chip fund. Japan allocated $25.3 billion to support domestic production, which includes subsidies for TSMC and Rapidus factories, and the aim behind this is to triple chip production sales by 2030.
India confirmed a $10 billion subsidy plan for its very first domestic chip factory, which has seen growth via an indirect support program, but critics point toward direct support being required to maintain its supply chain. The analyst also pointed out that Samsung also needs to provide direct support to maintain its semiconductor supply chain, with this year’s government direct support for the semiconductor industry at only 1.3 trillion won.
Samsung is already leading the AI market; now the other smartphone makers are also competing to win the AI war, and Apple is actively looking to add AI features to the iPhone and is close to a deal with OpenAI, another major name in AI development.
Previously, a few leaks teased somehow Apple and Google’s Gemini AI together in a way to bring something to the iPhones. But evidently, the deal is not closed yet, but one with OpenAI is nearly ready. A new report is reporting that Apple and OpenAI are cooking something as they have “closed in on an agreement” to use ChatGPT features on the iPhone as a part of iOS 18.
Apple has already started gearing up for its next major iteration, iOS 18, in which ChatGPT will be capitalized within iOS. The deal is not exactly clear yet, but it is under discussion and still live. The report also states that a deal between Apple and Google regarding AI isn’t cold yet.
A couple of weeks ago, it was reported that Apple was looking forward to a deal with Google to use Gemini to power AI features in the forthcoming iOS version. It was also stated that Apple was deciding to use Gemini for cloud-based text and image generation.
However, until now, both companies have not come to the same conclusion to reach an agreement, but discussions are still “ongoing.” Apple’s next iOS 18 version is expected to be unveiled at WWDC, along with AI features. The WWDC event is scheduled for June 10, a month after Google’s own I/O developer conference, which is scheduled for May 14.
T-Mobile US, Inc., is a telecommunications firm that provides wireless services in the United States. Now that it is setting up to expand its coverage area, it is looking forward to buying parts of U.S. Cellular, including cell towers and licenses, for more than $2 billion.
US Cellular is also a kind of mobile network operator in the US but has never been one of the major or demanding providers, despite the fact the fact that the carrier has operated its network for some time and is by no means a small player.
However, the carrier has also been slowly losing subscribers over the past few years. If the reports are to be believed, it will be revealed that T-Mobile and Verizon are both trying hard to buy the network US Cellular runs.
T-Mobile is evidently ‘closing in’ on a deal valued at $2 billion, which would take over some of US Cellular’s operations and spectrum licenses. Meanwhile, Verizon is also shadowing a same deal, but while the T-Mobile deal could close as soon as this month, Verizon’s deal is further away.
The report also added that Verizon’s talks with the regional carrier are expected to take more time and probably not result in an agreement; however, the 4,000+ towers that US Cellular owns are reportedly not part of the bargain, as the wireless spectrum licenses are the key point of value.