Tag: 3nm GAA

Following Samsung's confirmation of its Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event in New York on July 9th, where it is expected to unveil the new foldable screen phones Galaxy Z Fold7 and Galaxy Z Flip7, Samsung Semiconductor has officially released details of the Exynos 2500 processor, which has been the subject of much speculation. It may be used in phones sold in specific markets. Originally, the Exynos 2500 was expected to be used in the flagship Galaxy S25 series unveiled earlier this year, but subsequent considerations have changed. Samsung announced a continued partnership with Qualcomm, adopting the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor across the board. With the upcoming announcement of the new foldable screen phones Galaxy Z Fold7 and Galaxy Z Flip7, the Exynos 2500's specific details have been officially revealed, indicating its use in the new devices. The Exynos 2500 is a flagship-level processor using Samsung's second-generation 3nm GAA process, continuing its collaboration with AMD on RDNA display architecture technology. It also features enhanced AI capabilities, image processing, and connectivity on the device side, while boasting a higher level of integration and energy efficiency. The CPU uses a 1+7+2 10-core architecture, including one main Arm Cortex-X925 CPU core, two large Cortex-A725 CPU cores, and seven small Cortex-A520 CPU cores. This "large, medium, and small" core switching maintains a balance between performance, power consumption, and heat dissipation, but the maximum clock speed is relatively conservative, reaching only 3.3GHz. Graphics are handled by Xclipse...

According to sources obtained by The Korea Economic Daily, Samsung Foundry, Samsung's foundry business, has secured orders from NVIDIA, Qualcomm, IBM, Baidu, and other companies to manufacture wafers using its 3nm GAA (Gate-all-around) process technology. Samsung previously announced the successful mass production of its first wave of 3nm products at the end of June this year, and officially shipped them on July 25th. While customer details were not disclosed, it is rumored that these are customized processors ordered by Chinese cryptocurrency mining machine manufacturers. However, due to Samsung's 3nm GAA process yield being below 20%, it has been unable to handle large-scale orders. Recently, however, through a collaboration with Silicon Frontline Technology, a software technology company located in California, USA, it seems to have improved overall yield performance, resolving the previous predicament of poor yield and the resulting inability to increase production capacity. TSMC's 3nm process is scheduled for mass production in the fourth quarter and stable production in 2023. However, the foundry price may rise significantly. Previous reports have suggested that chipmakers including NVIDIA and Qualcomm may shift orders to Samsung. Others argue that chipmakers may consider product performance and choose to continue using TSMC at a higher price, but these costs may be passed on to the actual products. Therefore, there are rumors that the price of the iPhone 15 series launching next year may increase. However, considering the foundry cooperation model of NVIDIA and Qualcomm, they essentially maintain cooperation with multiple foundries, including TSMC and Samsung, to facilitate the transfer of orders to another foundry when the capacity or technology of a particular foundry cannot meet the demand. Unless there are specific considerations in product design, the primary consideration is likely to be ensuring smooth delivery.

When Google announced the Pixel 7 series last week, it also spent some time introducing its second custom processor developed in collaboration with Samsung, the Tensor G2, emphasizing its ability to deliver faster AI response times. Sammobile has further revealed design details of this processor. The Tensor G2 is manufactured using Samsung's 4nm LPE process technology and features a "2+2+4" tri-cluster architecture. It employs two 2.85GHz Arm Cortex-X1 CPUs, two 2.35GHz Cortex-A78 CPUs, and a 1.8GHz Cortex-A55 CPU, along with a Mali-G710 GPU with seven GPU cores. For 5G connectivity, the Tensor G2 integrates the Samsung Exynos 5300 5G modem, a TPU (Tension Processing Unit), and a Titan M security chip, allocating computational efficiency through a Context Hub design. Sammobile further points out that Google will continue to collaborate with Samsung on custom processors, such as using Samsung's new 3nm GAA process technology to improve processor performance and reduce power consumption. However, Google also doesn't rule out collaborating with TSMC on advanced process technologies to achieve even higher performance in its custom processors, allowing them to compete with mainstream processors. Previously, Google emphasized that the purpose of investing in custom processors was to achieve vertical integration of hardware and software, maximize computing efficiency, and improve power efficiency. This avoids the situation where mainstream processors, despite having higher computing performance, fail to deliver the same efficiency in actual use, leading to more power waste and even performance overkill. Therefore, its custom processor design philosophy will not solely focus on improving computing performance, but rather on maximizing AI computing performance, such as significantly increasing speech recognition accuracy, improving recognition speed, and extending battery life.

Samsung, which recently announced plans to begin producing 3nm chips, has officially delivered its first batch of chips manufactured using the 3nm GAA (Gate All Around) process, marking a significant milestone in the process technology race. However, Samsung did not disclose details of the first customers for these 3nm GAA chips, but market reports suggest it may be Chinese cryptocurrency mining equipment manufacturers. The delivery took place at Samsung's Hwaseong campus in South Korea, with the delivery ceremony presided over by Kyung Gye-hyun, head of Samsung Electronics Solutions (DS) division, and attended by South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Lee Chang-yang, signifying the South Korean government's emphasis on this development. Samsung emphasizes that the GAA process design, compared to the FinFET (Fin Field-Effect Transistor) design used by companies like TSMC, will reduce chip area by 16% compared to the previous 5nm EUV process technology, while improving performance by 23% and reducing power consumption by 45%. If the second-generation 3nm GAA process progresses smoothly, it is expected to reduce chip area by 35%, improve performance by 30%, and reduce power consumption by 50%. TSMC is also preparing to enter mass production using the 3nm process, but its pace will obviously be slower than Samsung's, with production expected to begin later this year. It is anticipated to assist companies like Apple in producing new processors. Qualcomm's next processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, is also expected to be mass-produced using TSMC's process technology and will be used in Samsung's flagship Galaxy S23 series expected to launch next year. However, market rumors suggest that Samsung still plans to mass-produce the new Exynos 2300 using the 3nm GAA process, and may also use this to attract Qualcomm to continue its foundry partnership. Therefore, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor expected to launch next year may not be entirely mass-produced using TSMC's process, and some models in the Galaxy S23 series may still use Samsung processors.