Compared to 7nm, Samsung’s 5nm FinFET process technology provides up to a 25 percent increase in logic area efficiency with 20 percent lower power consumption or 10 percent higher performance as a result of process improvement to enable us to have more innovative standard cell architecture.

In addition to power performance area (PPA) improvements from 7nm to 5nm, customers can fully leverage Samsung’s highly sophisticated EUV technology. Like its predecessor, 5nm uses EUV lithography in metal layer patterning and reduces mask layers while providing better fidelity.

Another key benefit of 5nm is that we can reuse all the 7nm intellectual property (IP) to 5nm. Thereby 7nm customers’ transitioning to 5nm will greatly benefit from reduced migration costs, pre-verified design ecosystem, and consequently shorten their 5nm product development.

As a result of the close collaboration between Samsung Foundry and its ‘Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE)’ partners, a robust design infrastructure for Samsung’s 5nm, including the process design kit (PDK), design methodologies (DM), electronic design automation (EDA) tools, and IP, has been provided since the fourth quarter of 2018. Besides, Samsung Foundry has already started offering 5nm Multi Project Wafer (MPW) service to customers.

“In successful completion of our 5nm development, we’ve proven our capabilities in EUV-based nodes,” said Charlie Bae, Executive Vice President of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. “In response to customers’ surging demand for advanced process technologies to differentiate their next-generation products, we continue our commitment to accelerating the volume production of EUV-based technologies.”

In October 2018, Samsung announced the readiness and its initial production of 7nm process, its first process node with EUV lithography technology. The company has provided commercial samples of the industry’s first EUV-based new products and has started mass production of 7nm process early this year.

Also, Samsung is collaborating with customers on 6nm, a customized EUV-based process node, and has already received the product tape-out of its first 6nm chip.

Mr. Bae continued, “Considering the various benefits including PPA and IP, Samsung’s EUV-based advanced nodes are expected to be in high demand for new and innovative applications such as 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), high performance computing (HPC), and automotive. Leveraging our robust technology competitiveness including our leadership in EUV lithography, Samsung will continue to deliver the most advanced technologies and solutions to customers.”

Samsung foundry’s EUV-based process technologies are currently being manufactured at the S3-line in Hwaseong, Korea. Additionally, Samsung will expand its EUV capacity to a new EUV line in Hwaseong, which is expected to be completed within the second half of 2019 and start production ramp-up from next year.

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.

Semiconductors’ high performance and low power characteristics depend on the width of the circuits that are inserted into the chips’ limited space. In this sense, EUV realizes more detailed semiconductor circuit pattern than the existing argon fluoride (ArF) wavelength and reduces complex multi-patterning process, securing both high performance and productivity.

The EUV technology by Samsung is expected to accelerate the growth of various revolutionary products such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. Take a look at the infographic to learn more about EUV and how it is expected to contribute to the advancement of semiconductor technology.

Here, we explore exactly what EUV is and why it is so integral to developing next-generation chips.

What is EUV?

In the semiconductor industry, EUV refers to extreme ultraviolet lithography, a technology that is expected to bring a radical progress to one of the most important steps in semiconductor manufacturing, photolithography.

When producing semiconductor chips, silicon-based round disks, called “wafers” are coated with a light-sensitive substance and enter a system called a “scanner.” Inside the scanner, a laser light source is cast onto the wafers to create patterns of circuitries, which later are used for forming billions of ultrafine, microscopically small structures, inside a semiconductor chip. This process, while described very concisely, is known as photolithography.

Photo of a tall, box-shaped EUV scanner (courtesy of ASML)

With EUV technology, an EUV system, or EUV scanner, will now be able to perform the photolithography step by utilizing a light source with an “extreme ultraviolet” wavelength. In the world of chip manufacturing, realizing finer circuits is a must, as it enables integration of a greater number of components inside a chip and therefore building faster and more energy efficient chip.

The utilization of an EUV light source will allow for defining finer and denser patterns than previous methods because of its shorter wavelength, which is essential since light isn’t able to directly define features smaller than its own wavelength. Upcoming EUV scanners will, specifically, utilize EUV radiation at a 13.5-nanometer wavelength, less than 1/10th of what current ArF excimer laser scanners are able to provide.

How will EUV be implemented?

Today, semiconductor chips are being used in almost every electronic device imaginable, and EUV technology will be utilized to produce the most advanced semiconductors for mobile, server, network and supercomputing applications.

For its part, Samsung plans to utilize EUV starting with its 7-nanometer LPP (Low Power Plus) process, a cutting-edge technology that the company expects to apply by the second half of 2018. Samsung’s new fabrication line in Hwaseong, which will be ready for production in 2020, will also be set up with EUV technology to provide leading-edge semiconductor products to global market.

With this new EUV line, Samsung will be able to strengthen its leadership in single nanometer process technology by responding to market demand from various applications, including mobile, server, network, and HPC (high performance computing), for which high performance and power efficiency are critical.

The new facility is expected to be completed within the second half of 2019 and start production ramp-up in 2020. The initial investment in the new EUV line is projected to reach USD 6 billion by 2020 and additional investment will be determined depending on market circumstances.

Kinam Kim, President & CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics, gives a speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for Samsung’s new EUV (extreme ultraviolet) line in Hwaseong, Korea.

“With the addition of the new EUV line, Hwaseong will become the center of the company’s semiconductor cluster spanning Giheung, Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek in Korea,” said Kinam Kim, President & CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics. “The line will play a pivotal role as Samsung seeks to maintain a competitive edge as an industry leader in the coming age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Samsung has decided to utilize cutting-edge EUV technology starting with its 7-nanometer (nm) LPP (Low Power Plus) process. This new line will be set up with EUV lithography equipment to overcome nano-level technology limitations. Samsung has continued to invest in EUV R&D to support its global customers for developing next-generation chips based on this leading-edge technology.

Samsung Electronics Hwaseong Campus EUV line bird’s eye view

Using 7LPP EUV process technology, Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets will offer a smaller chip footprint, giving OEMs more usable space inside upcoming products to support larger batteries or slimmer designs. Process improvements, combined with a more advanced chip design, are expected to bring significant improvements in battery life.

Last May, Samsung introduced 7LPP EUV, its first semiconductor process technology to use an EUV lithography solution. It is anticipated that EUV lithography deployment will break the barriers of Moore’s law scaling, paving the way for single nanometer semiconductor technology generations.

Compared with its 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung’s 7LPP EUV technology not only greatly reduces the process complexity with fewer process steps and better yield, but also allows up to a 40 percent increase in area efficiency with 10 percent higher performance or up to 35 percent lower power consumption.

“We are excited to lead the 5G mobile industry together with Samsung,” said RK Chunduru, senior vice president, supply chain and procurement, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Using 7nm LPP EUV, our new generation of Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets will take advantage of the process improvements and advanced chip design to improve the user experience of future devices.”

“We are pleased to continue to expand our foundry relationship with Qualcomm Technologies in 5G technologies using our EUV process technology,” said Charlie Bae, Executive Vice President of Foundry Sales and Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “This collaboration is an important milestone for our foundry business as it signifies confidence in Samsung’s leading process technology.”

Samsung Electronics’ Foundry manufacturing line located in Hwaseong, Korea

10LPP process technology allows up to 10-percent higher performance or 15-percent lower power consumption compared to its first generation 10nm process technology, 10LPE (Low Power Early). As this process is derived from the already proven 10LPE technology, it offers competitive advantages by greatly reducing turn-around time from development to mass production and by providing significantly higher initial manufacturing yield.

SoCs designed with 10LPP process technology will be used in digital devices scheduled to launch early next year and are expected to become more widely available throughout the year.

“We will be able to better serve our customers through the migration from 10LPE to 10LPP with improved performance and higher initial yield,” said Ryan Lee, vice president of Foundry Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung with its long-living 10nm process strategy will continue to work on the evolution of 10nm technology down to 8LPP to offer customers distinct competitive advantages for a wide range of applications.”

Samsung also announced that its newest manufacturing line, S3, located in Hwaseong, Korea, is ready to ramp up production of process technologies including 10nm and below. S3 is the third fab of Samsung’s Foundry Business, following S1 in Giheung, Korea and S2 in Austin, USA. Samsung’s 7nm FinFET process technology with EUV (Extreme Ultra Violet) will also be mass produced at S3.

Samsung Electronics’ S3 manufacturing line located in Hwaseong, Korea