Samsung is the world’s largest maker of reminiscence chips.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Photographs
Samsung Electronics on Wednesday laid out its roadmap to increase its chip manufacturing enterprise, together with modern semiconductors, because it appears to be like to meet up with chief TSMC.
Maybe finest recognized for its smartphones, the South Korean know-how agency has an enormous semiconductor enterprise that’s its essential revenue driver. It makes reminiscence chips that go into information facilities and laptops.
However Samsung additionally has a chip manufacturing enterprise often called a foundry, which produces semiconductors for different firms that design chips, resembling Qualcomm.
Earlier this yr, Samsung mentioned it will start making chips with a 2 nanometer course of in 2025. The corporate has now given a extra detailed roadmap, saying it will start mass manufacturing of the 2nm course of for cellular functions in 2025, then increase to high-performance computing in 2026 and to automotive in 2027.
The nanometer determine refers back to the dimension of every particular person transistor on a chip. The smaller the transistor, the extra of them could be packed onto a single semiconductor. Sometimes, a discount in nanometer dimension can yield extra highly effective and environment friendly chips.
For reference, Apple’s newest iPhone processor is made utilizing a 5nm course of. Samsung anticipates that smartphones would require extra superior chips shifting ahead and is making ready for that in 2025.
Excessive-performance computing refers to chips for information facilities to coach and deploy synthetic intelligence functions, as Samsung appears to be like to capitalize on the expansion of the know-how, partly spurred by the recognition of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Nvidia, a market chief in AI chips, depends on foundries like TSMC to fabricate its semiconductors.
Samsung’s foundry lags Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract producer, by far. Within the first quarter of the yr, TSMC accounted for 59% of world semiconductor foundry income, versus 13% for Samsung, in line with Counterpoint Analysis.
Samsung is now trying to play catch up by upping its capability and laying a roadmap out for high-growth areas within the chip market.
The corporate reiterated that its 1.4nm course of will start in 2027 as deliberate.
Samsung additionally mentioned it’s persevering with to increase its chip manufacturing capability, with new manufacturing strains in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and Taylor, Texas, which Samsung has beforehand introduced.
