Samsung Plans to Begin Mass Manufacturing of 3nm Chips Next Year

According to AnandTech, Samsung Foundry, the world’s second-largest independent foundry behind TSMC, has tweaked its 3nm manufacturing node. The first chips made by Samsung Foundry utilizing the 3nm process, known as 3GAE (3nm Gate-All-Around Early), are expected to enter high-volume production a year later than expected. It was also taken from Samsung’s roadmap, implying that 3GAE would only be developed for internal usage.

“As for the 3GAE process, we’ve been in discussions with customers and anticipate mass-producing 3GAE in 2022,” a Samsung representative said. The 3GAP (3nm Gate-All-Around Plus) node, which will succeed the 3GAE, is still on the plan, with commercial production scheduled to commence in 2023.

The plan was presented during the Foundry Forum 2021 in China. The new tech roadmap from Samsung Foundry was then republished on Baidu and Weibo.

Samsung has added 5LPP and 4LPP to its roadmaps for devices that use the older FinFET transistor design, with high-volume production planned for 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Samsung claimed in May 2019 that the 3GAE and 3GAP nodes will provide a 35 percent boost in performance and a 50 percent decrease in power consumption when compared to the previous generation process node, the 7LPP.

Back in 2019, it was stated that commercial manufacturing of 3GAA (Gate-All-Around transistor design) will begin in late 2021. With a new launch date of 2022 for Samsung’s 3nm Gate-All-Around Early process, one may assume that there was a small delay or a mistake on Samsung’s side. In any case, Sammy’s Early nodes aren’t heavily used by manufacturers, so it’s not a major issue.

Samsung Foundry recently taped out a 3nm device with its Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor design. The final stage of a chip’s design cycle is taping it out, which results in one of two outcomes: the chip design works or it doesn’t. In the latter situation, a modest adjustment or a complete redesign of the design may be necessary.