By hmimcu 
On February 3rd, it was reported that TSMC’s 3nm process technology is about to enter the mass production stage. Due to the high quotation, a large number of chip manufacturers have fled from their original starting lineup; And the latest news reveals that these manufacturers may turn to Samsung because of its very competitive price. It is reported that Samsung is currently developing the 3nm GAE process technology, and the yield is expected to be greatly improved.
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(Image from Snapdragon China official website)
At present, both TSMC and Samsung have entered the era of 3nm process technology, and their first customers have been exposed from various channels. However, according to existing information, TSMC’s new technology seems to have not been recognized by chip manufacturers except for Apple. The latest news reveals that Samsung’s 3nm GAE process technology has already locked in four major customers, IBM, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Baidu. Coupled with their own new generation Exynos chips, it can be said that they are basically not worried about order volume. On the other hand, TSMC has confirmed that both A17 biomimetic chips and M3 series chips will use this process technology, while Qualcomm will allocate some of the Snapdragon 8 Gen3 orders to Samsung, resulting in dismal results.
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(Image from: Apple official website)
Of course, market demand has not yet risen against the trend, and TSMC’s constantly rising outsourcing costs have also made it difficult for chip manufacturers to bear. In the past two generations of processes, the 7nm process, which began mass production in 2018, has reached a high price of $10000 per wafer, while the 5nm process has skyrocketed to $16000. TSMC has quoted a price of $20000 per wafer for the 3nm process. Relatively speaking, Samsung’s pricing needs to be more cost-effective, coupled with GAA’s small upgrade version giving the industry great confidence, which can naturally attract more customers.
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(Image from Snapdragon China official website)
But it may take some time for Samsung’s 3nm process technology to truly come to fruition, after all, Samsung has also suffered from the problem of “forced mass production”. It is interesting that in the three models of the Samsung Galaxy S23 series released yesterday, they are all equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen2 For Galaxy mobile platform from Qualcomm. Although this version is considered an exclusive customized version of Samsung, the craftsmanship still comes from TSMC, which cannot help but raise doubts about Samsung’s technology.
(Image from: Apple official website)
On the other hand, the expected landing time of TSMC and Samsung’s 3nm process technology is similar, and the latter may even achieve mass production ahead of schedule. Samsung, which has more advantages in terms of price and power consumption, can easily seize orders from TSMC. In response to market changes, TSMC has prepared five versions of the 3nm process technology. In addition to the N3E process technology that will be used on Apple A17 biomimetic chips, there are also N3, N3P, N3S, and N3X, all of which are enhanced versions in different directions. Of course, Apple has chosen the N3E with a more “balanced” cost-effectiveness, and the price increase is bound to be too large.
Anyway, with appropriate yield, Samsung can once again compete head-on with TSMC, bringing more vitality to the market and avoiding a vicious cycle of dominance. But at present, it is still in the stage of paper-based negotiations, and it is not yet known whether Samsung can implement paper-based data in its products.https://www.stoneitech.com/