A Race to GAA
Jeong Eun-seung, chief technology officer of Samsung Electronics' Device Solution (DS) Business Division, has declared early commercialization of gate all around (GAA) technology, the core of a next-generation foundry micro fabrication process.
"We are developing GAA technology ahead of our main competitor (TSMC), and if we secure this technology, our foundry business will be able to grow further," Jeong said in a keynote speech at the Samsung Tech & Career Forum held online on Aug. 25. The forum was created by Samsung Electronics' DS Business Division to attract global engineers.
GAA is considered a key part of a 3-nanometer process, which is to be adopted by top global foundry companies in the near future. Its key point is to change the structure of a transistor, which acts as 'current switch' inside semiconductors, from 3D (FinFET) to 4D (GAA). According to Samsung Electronics, a test of its 3-nm GAA process design kit with its customers in 2019 showed that the GAA technology cut the chip area by 45 percent and boosted power efficiency by 50 percent.
Industry analysts say that they need to wait and see who will commercialize GAA technology first. This is because TSMC is also active in commercializing it early. Between 2011 and 2020, 31.4 percent of the global GAA patents came from TSMC. Samsung Electronics' patents accounted for 20.6 percent.
Samsung Electronics says that it competes neck and neck with TSMC in terms of technology. "Samsung started its foundry business in 2017, but we will overtake TSMC with our know-how in memory semiconductors," Jeong said, citing the case that Samsung Electronics developed a 14MHz product loaded with FinFET technology before TSMC.