Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics has revealed its technological road map to gain a competitive edge in semiconductors smaller than 3 nanometers (1 billionth of 1 meter). The company plans to be the first in the world to implement 3D packaging technology, vertically stacking Gate-All-Around (GAA) chips produced in its foundries. The move signifies the company's determination to offer state-of-the-art total solutions, ranging from foundry lines to advanced post-processing.
On July 4, Choi Si-young, the president of Samsung Electronics’ foundry business, presented this foundry road map strategy at the Samsung Foundry Forum 2023 held in the COEX exhibition hall in Samsung-dong, Seoul, as the first keynote speaker.
President Choi said, “We plan to extend the application of chips made with the GAA process to 3D packaging by 2025,” adding, “As there are limits to cost reduction and chip area reduction with fine processing, we are diversifying our advanced post-processing product line.” The combination of the GAA process and 3D packaging has never been attempted in the industry, primarily due to the high complexity of both processes.
GAA is a pre-process technology for making ultra-fine devices on the foundry line. It maximizes the area of the data transmission pathway while reducing the size of the semiconductor. 3D packaging is a combining technology that makes different chips function as though they are a single semiconductor. Semiconductor companies like Intel and TSMC are fiercely competing to enhance this technology, as the implementation of fine circuits has reached its limit.
Samsung Electronics first introduced X-Cube, a 3D stacked package technology for 7 nm EUV system semiconductors, in 2020, which was earlier than TSMC, the number one company in the industry. In 2022, Samsung was also the first in the world to introduce a 3 nm GAA process to the mass production line. The company has organized an Advanced Packaging (AVP) business team within the semiconductor business unit to accelerate research and development (R&D) of next-generation semiconductor post-processing. By 2027, Samsung plans to mass produce a 1.4 nm process as scheduled.
In the first quarter of this year, the global foundry market share slightly widened with TSMC at 60.1% and Samsung Electronics at 12.4% compared to the previous quarter. However, unlike TSMC, which applies the FinFET structure to up to 3 nm, Samsung Electronics has been applying GAA from 3 nm, and is confident that it will technically lead when competing based on GAA.
Samsung Electronics also unveiled plans to strengthen the domestic and international fabless ecosystem. Samsung will work with the domestic fabless industry to nurture the domestic semiconductor ecosystem, including AI semiconductors. Samsung judged that a robust semiconductor ecosystem centered on fabless companies is needed to grow the foundry business.
Samsung Electronics will first release the new PDK Prime, which provides the information needed for semiconductor development. PDK refers to the manufacturing process information provided by foundry companies to fabless companies. Using the PDK, fabless companies can design semiconductors that match Samsung’s foundry manufacturing process and equipment.
The new PDK Prime includes a number of features that reduce product design time and improve design accuracy compared to previous versions. Samsung plans to provide PDK Prime to 2 and 3-nanometer process fabless customers from the second half of this year and intends to expand this service to 8-inch and 12-inch legacy processes thereafter.
The fact is, the base of domestic fabless and system semiconductors is vulnerable. According to the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association, the global market share of Korea’s system semiconductors is a mere 3%. The fabless share is slightly over 1%. Among the top 10 fabless companies worldwide, six are U.S. companies, and four are from Taiwan, home to TSMC, the world’s leading foundry company. Both large and small Taiwanese fabless companies, alongside TSMC, are creating a system semiconductor ecosystem.
In contrast, it is estimated that over 90% of Samsung Foundry’s customers are made up of its own System LSI business, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA. This indicates that there are few potential customers for Samsung Foundry in Korea that could grow alongside Samsung Electronics.
Several fabless companies attended the event, presenting cases of their collaboration with Samsung Electronics. Korea’s largest fabless company, LX Semicon, plans to strengthen its foundry collaboration with Samsung Electronics, starting with 8-inch and extending to 12-inch processes. AI fabless company Rebellions commercialized its AI semiconductor Atom, which uses Samsung Foundry’s 5-nanometer process, this year. DEEPX also developed four high-performance, low-power AI semiconductors using Samsung Foundry’s 5, 14, and 28-nanometer processes.
Samsung Electronics also announced plans to strengthen the domestic system semiconductor R&D ecosystem. The company will expand its Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) service, a key enabler for AI and high-performance computing, which employs an advanced 4-nanometer process, next year. MPW is a service that enables fabless companies without their own semiconductor wafer or fab to prototype designed semiconductors. Samsung plans to provide 4-nanometer MPW support three times this year and aims to increase the total number of MPW services by more than 10% next year.