For me, what is most exciting about this milestone is that it highlights how far the semiconductor industry innovations have come today and provides a glimpse into the evolutions that will shape the industry of tomorrow.

Consider that the 5nm process is here in just six months after last October’s unveiling of the first commercial application of EUV in our 7nm process. It’s a rapid progress made possible in large part by running thousands of wafer layers through EUV exposure systems each week. Hands-on experience is the only way to ascend the EUV learning curve, and that body of knowledge is growing daily.

In the learning process, we’re seeing one of the biggest and broadest benefits of EUV – the simplification of design by moving away from increasingly complex multi-patterning lithography strategies. While still early, it’s increasingly clear that the reduced number of mask steps and more straightforward process is nothing short of a revolution for silicon designers. Sighs of relief will be heard as EUV will be seamlessly incorporated into the existing design architectures.

Samsung’s 5nm is the next step in the evolution of EUV. 5nm will be more efficient and feature new innovations including Samsung’s proprietary Smart Diffusion Break (SDB) transistor architecture. One of the most important aspects of 5nm is that it supports 25 percent area reduction and 10 percent performance improvement or 20 percent power reduction than 7nm.

Also, it will be largely design-rule compatible with the existing design of 7nm. Therefore, it is essentially a recharacterization of the technology, not redesign, which will substantially reduce time and the cost of implementation. This combination of technological advance and economic advantage is very much in line with a grand tradition of the semiconductor industry.

This merging of technological advancement and economic benefits is very much in line with the grand tradition in the semiconductor industry as well as technologies including 5G, AI, Connected & Automotive, Robot, etc. – constantly serving as a catalyst for the fourth industrial revolution, while simultaneously driving costs down. That’s why the evolution-moment of 5nm is, in its own unique way, as important as the innovation-moment of 7LPP.

Bringing EUV into production has been a long, challenging process. It required substantial investment of time, money, and human resources. While there were certainly moments of doubt along the way, we had to pursue our vision. The 5nm announcement offers compelling evidence for the value of the investment. As businesses from diverse fields including Foundry, Fabless, the Design House, Packaging, Tests, etc., the semiconductor ecosystem will grow stronger. This is a new chapter for the semiconductor industry, and we are excited to be part of the continued journey in innovation.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has completed all process technology development and has started wafer production of its revolutionary process node, 7LPP, the 7-nanometer (nm) LPP (Low Power Plus) with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. The introduction of 7LPP is a clear demonstration of Samsung Foundry’s technology roadmap evolution and provides customers with a definite path to 3nm.

The commercialization of its newest process node, 7LPP gives customers the ability to build a full range of exciting new products that will push the boundaries of applications such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise and Hyperscale Datacenter, IoT, Automotive, and Networking.

“With the introduction of its EUV process node, Samsung has led a quiet revolution in the semiconductor industry,” said Charlie Bae, executive vice president of foundry sales and marketing team at Samsung Electronics. “This fundamental shift in how wafers are manufactured gives our customers the opportunity to significantly improve their products’ time to market with superior throughput, reduced layers, and better yields. We’re confident that 7LPP will be an optimal choice not only for mobile and HPC, but also for a wide range of cutting-edge applications.”

The Characteristics and Benefits of EUV Technology

EUV uses 13.5nm wavelength light to expose silicon wafers as opposed to conventional argon fluoride (ArF) immersion technologies that are only able to achieve 193nm wavelengths and require expensive multi-patterning mask sets. EUV enables the use of a single mask to create a silicon wafer layer where ArF can require up to 4 masks to create that same layer. Consequently Samsung’s 7LPP process can reduce the total number of masks by about 20% compared to non-EUV process, enabling customers to save time and cost.

The EUV lithography improvements also deliver increased performance, lower power and smaller area while improving design productivity by reducing mulit-patterning complexity. Compared to its 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung’s 7LPP technology not only greatly reduces the process complexity with fewer layers and better yields, but also delivers up to a 40% increase in area efficiency with 20% higher performance or up to 50% lower power consumption.

The Road to EUV Technology

Since Samsung’s research and development in EUV began in the 2000s, the company has made outstanding progress through collaborative partnerships with industry-leading tool providers to design and install completely new equipment in its manufacturing facilities to ensure the stability of EUV wafers. The initial EUV production has started in Samsung’s S3 Fab in Hwaseong, Korea.

By 2020, Samsung expects to secure additional capacity with a new EUV line for customers who need high-volume manufacturing for next-generation chip designs. As an EUV pioneer, Samsung has also developed proprietary capabilities such as a unique mask inspection tool that performs early defect detection in EUV masks, allowing those defects to be eliminated early in the manufacturing cycle.

“Commercialization of EUV technology is a revolution for the semiconductor industry and will have a huge impact on our everyday lives,” said Peter Jenkins, vice president of corporate marketing at ASML. “It is our great pleasure to collaborate with Samsung and other leading chip makers on this fundamental shift in semiconductor process manufacturing.”

7nm LPP EUV Ecosystem

The Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem is also fully prepared for the introduction of 7LPP with EUV. Ecosystem partners across the industry will be providing Foundation and Advanced IP, Advanced Packaging, and Services to fully enable Samsung customers to develop their products on this new platform.  From high-performance and high-density standard cells to HBM2/2e memory interfaces and 112G SerDes interfaces, SAFE is ready to help customers implement their designs on 7LPP.

Following its US, China, Korea, and Japan events, Samsung will hold the year’s final Foundry Forum on October 18, in Munich, Germany for European customers and partners. For more information about Samsung Foundry, please visit https://www.samsungfoundry.com.

Based on Samsung Foundry’s 7LPP (7nm Low Power Plus) and 5LPE (5nm Low Power Early) process technologies, the Arm® Artisan® physical IP platform will enable 3GHz+ computing performance for Arm’s Cortex®-A76 processor.

Samsung’s 7LPP process technology will be ready for its initial production in the second half of 2018. The first extreme ultra violet (EUV) lithography process technology, and its key IPs, are in development and expected to be completed by the first half of 2019. Samsung’s 5LPE technology will allow greater area scaling and ultra-low power benefits due to the latest innovations in 7LPP process technology.

The Arm Artisan physical IP platform for Samsung’s 7LPP and 5LPE includes HD logic architecture, a comprehensive suite of memory compilers, and 1.8V and 3.3V GPIO libraries. In addition, for Samsung’s 7LPP and 5LPE process technologies, Arm will provide Artisan POP IP solutions on its latest processor cores featuring Arm DynamIQ technology. Arm’s POP IP solution is a core-hardening acceleration technology to enable the best Arm processor implementations and the most rapid time-to-market.

“Building an extensive and differentiated design ecosystem is a must for our foundry customers,” said Ryan Sanghyun Lee, vice president of Foundry Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “Collaboration with Arm in the fields of IP solutions is crucial to increase high-performance computing power and accelerate the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning capabilities.”

“Arm and Samsung Foundry have collaborated on a large number of chips using Artisan physical IP on Samsung Foundry process technologies,” said Kelvin Low, vice president of marketing, Physical Design Group at Arm. “Samsung Foundry’s 7LPP and 5LPE nodes are innovative process technologies which will meet our mutual customers’ needs to deliver the next generation of advanced system-on-chips (SoCs) from mobile to hyperscale datacenters.”

Details of the recent updates to Samsung’s Foundry roadmap, from 7nm EUV development to 3GAAE (3nm Gate-All-Around Early) technology, and top-notch design enablement solutions were presented at Samsung Foundry Forum 2018 Korea on July 5, 2018, in Seoul. Samsung Foundry Forums were held in the United States and China earlier this year, sharing Samsung’s cutting-edge process technologies with global customers and partners.

For more information about Samsung Foundry, please visit www.samsungfoundry.com.