The company is already the industry leader when it comes to gate-all-around transistors, but so far it's yet to really make a dent in TSMC's market share.
By Josh Norem April 30, 2024
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/s ... sistors-inSamsung was the first fab to launch a 3nm process in mid-2022, beating TSMC to market by about six months. Plus, its 3nm node offers gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, which none of its rivals have launched yet. Despite these advantages, Apple chose TSMC for its M3 SoCs. Samsung has yet to announce any major contracts for its 3nm GAA chips, even though they're almost two years old now. Nonetheless, Samsung is pressing forward with GAA transistors and will launch the third generation of this technology with its 2nm process in 2025.
News of Samsung's plans comes from Business Korea, which has a new report on Samsung's efforts to compete with rivals TSMC and Intel. It states the obvious upfront: Samsung is the only fab with commercialized gate-all-around transistors, but that effort has failed to move the needle. It lays the blame for this situation on the global economic downturn in 2022 and 2023, high production costs, and a limited number of clients interested in bleeding-edge technology. One big factor it fails to mention is Samsung's struggles with yields, which likely caused top-tier clients like Apple and Nvidia to shop at TSMC instead.
