Samsung is Ready to Begin Mass Production of third-generation 4nm Chips

According to the latest reports, Samsung Semiconductor received the green light to proceed with the mass production of third-generation 4nm chips. The company managed to achieve satisfactory wafer yield of the new generation chipsets that should help lower power consumption. The manufacturing process is expected to start by the end of H1 2023, which is in three months.

Samsung is Ready to Begin Mass Production of third-generation 4nm Chips

At the Hwaseong factory, yields on a single wafer were extremely low which pushed chip companies such as Qualcomm to contract TSMC for 4nm platforms. The Taiwanese company had about 70-80% usable wafers, while Samsung barely managed to reach 60%. Since makers pay for the whole wafer, it is more viable to go for the manufacturer with less production waste.

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This issue led to Samsung Electronics losing its largest customer, Qualcomm, to TSMC. Also, it recently lost Tesla’s big 4nm chip order to TSMC. This is the reason why the improvements in 3rd-gen 4nm chip yield were crucial for the company.

The next leap in advanced process technology is 3nm. Apple will most probably be the first one to launch its iPhone 15 Pro devices with such platforms. According to the data by Counterpoint, the 4nm and 5nm processes are among the most used in mobile devices at 22%, followed by 6nm and 7nm chips at 16%.

The production of 4nm chips is expected to further increase in the future, as both Samsung and TSMC are building plants in the United States which will be ready for operation in 2024. These 4nm chips will be based on the 2.3-generation process. Moreover, it is the first time Samsung Foundry has specified the mass production time of a 4nm follow-up version.

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