Samsung’s difficulties and efforts in improving the yield rate of its 3nm GAA process are well known, but the latest news is that the Korean giant’s foundry has successfully tripled this number. This means that the yield rate of the 3-nanometer process has increased from the previous 10%-20% to the current 30%-60%.
Despite the huge progress, the company still lags behind TSMC, and Samsung is rumored to be investing more resources in its second-generation 3nm GAA process.
As TSMC aggressively expands its 3nm wafer production, with monthly output expected to reach 100,000 wafers this year, Samsung has little chance of catching up with its foundry rivals. Of course, the Taiwanese semiconductor giant has faced almost no serious competition in this area over the past few years, but Samsung continues to work hard.
According to the whistleblower Revegnus, the second-generation 3nmGAA process is showing great potential, and it is said that there will be improvements in power consumption, performance and logic area. Although the yield rate of the second-generation 3nmGAA process was not mentioned, it is said to be comparable to TSMC's N3P node.
Samsung must further optimize the yield rate, because earlier reports stated that Samsung needs to increase the yield rate to 70% in order to regain the trust of old customers such as Qualcomm. There are also rumors that Samsung is increasing investment in 2nm technology for future orders, but it turns out that these 2nm wafers are actually 3nm wafers with different names.
So far, apart from completing orders for cryptocurrency mining hardware in the 3nm GAA process, Samsung has not brought satisfactory services to other customers. It could be that these companies were not impressed with the early samples and decided to stick with TSMC for the foreseeable future. However, this does not mean that Samsung is not committed to making adjustments, but it will take some time to pose a sufficient threat to the leaders in the industry.