Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today unveiled plans for continuous process technology migration to 3- and 2-nanometer (nm) based on the company’s Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor structure at its 5^th annual Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2021.

With a theme of Adding One More Dimension, the multi-day virtual event is expected to draw over 2,000 global customers and partners. At this year’s event, Samsung will share its vision to bolster its leadership in the rapidly evolving foundry market by taking each respective part of foundry business to the next level: process technology, manufacturing operations and foundry services.

“We will increase our overall production capacity and lead the most advanced technologies while taking silicon scaling a step further and continuing technological innovation by application,” said Dr. Siyoung Choi, President and Head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics.” Amid further digitalization prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, our customers and partners will discover the limitless potential of silicon implementation for delivering the right technology at the right time.”

GAA Is Ready for Customers’ Adoption – 3nm MP in 2022, 2nm in 2025

With its enhanced power, performance and flexible design capability, Samsung’s unique GAA technology, Multi-Bridge-Channel FET (MBCFET^TM), is essential for continuing process migration. Samsung’s first 3nm GAA process node utilizing MBCFET will allow up to 35 percent decrease in area, 30 percent higher performance or 50 percent lower power consumption compared to the 5nm process. In addition to power, performance and area (PPA) improvements, as its process maturity has increased, 3nm’s logic yield is approaching a similar level to the 4nm process, which is currently in mass production.

Samsung is scheduled to start producing its customers’ first 3nm-based chip designs in the first half of 2022, while its second generation of 3nm is expected in 2023. Newly added to Samsung’s technology roadmap, the 2nm process node with MBCFET is in the early stages of development with mass production in 2025.

FinFET for CIS, DDI, MCU – 17nm Specialty Process Technology Debuts

Samsung Foundry is continuously improving its FinFET process technology to support specialty products with cost-effective and application-specific competitiveness. A good example of this is the company’s 17nm FinFET process node. In addition to the intrinsic benefits afforded by FinFET, the process node has excellent performance and power efficiency leveraging a 3D transistor architecture. Consequently, Samsung’s 17nm FinFET provides up to 43 percent decrease in area, 39 percent higher performance or a 49 percent increase in power efficiency compared to the 28nm process.

Additionally, Samsung is advancing its 14nm process in order to support 3.3V high voltage or flash-type embedded MRAM (eMRAM) which enables increased write speed and density. It will be a great option for applications such as micro controller units (MCUs), IoT and wearables. Samsung’s 8nm radio frequency (RF) platform is expected to expand the company’s leadership in the 5G semiconductor market from sub-6GHz to mmWave applications.

Looking ahead, in cooperation with its ecosystem partners, Samsung Foundry’s SAFE Forum will be held virtually in November 2021.

With comprehensive process technology roadmap updates down to 3-nanometer (nm) at the annual ‘Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2018 USA’, Samsung Foundry is focused on providing customers with the tools necessary to design and manufacture powerful, yet energy-efficient system-on-chips (SoC) for a wide range of applications.

“The trend toward a smarter, connected world has the industry demanding more from silicon providers,” said Charlie Bae, executive vice president and head of the Foundry Sales & Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “To meet that demand, Samsung Foundry is powering innovation at the silicon level that will ultimately give people access to data, analysis, and insight in new and previously unthought-of ways to make human lives better. It is imperative for us to accomplish the first-time silicon success for our customers’ next-generation chip designs.”

Process Technology Roadmap Updates

• 7LPP (7nm Low Power Plus): 7LPP, the first semiconductor process technology to use an EUV lithography solution, is scheduled to be ready for production in the second half of this year. Key IPs are under development, aiming to be completed by the first half of 2019.

• 5LPE (5nm Low Power Early): Through further smart innovation from the 7LPP process, 5LPE will allow greater area scaling and ultra-low power benefits.

• 4LPE/LPP (4nm Low Power Early/Plus): The use of highly mature and verified FinFET technology will be extended to the 4nm process. As the last generation of FinFET, 4nm provides a smaller cell size, improved performance, and faster ramp-up to the stable level of yield by adopting proven 5LPE, supporting easy migration.

• 3GAAE/GAAP (3nm Gate-All-Around Early/Plus): 3nm process nodes adopt GAA, the next-generation device architecture. To overcome the physical scaling and performance limitations of the FinFET architecture, Samsung is developing its unique GAA technology, MBCFET^TM (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET) that uses a nano-sheet device. By enhancing the gate control, the performance of 3nm nodes will be significantly improved.

HPC (High-Performance Computing) Solutions

Samsung Foundry delivers the technology solutions to drive the latest hyper-scale datacenters and accelerate the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning capability. From the latest 7LPP technology and beyond with its EUV capability, to the differentiated high-speed IPs such as 100Gbps+ SerDes on top of the innovative 2.5D/3D heterogeneous packaging, Samsung delivers the total platform solutions to greatly increase computing power and accelerate AI revolution.

Connected Device Solutions

From low-power microcontroller units (MCU) and next-generation connected devices to the most sophisticated autonomous vehicles based on 5G and Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication, Samsung Foundry offers full-featured turnkey platforms to enable compelling products. A broad technology portfolio from 28/18 FD-SOI with eMRAM and RF capability to advanced 10/8nm FinFET processes will enable a great end-user experience for connected devices.

Mr. Bae continued, “Over the past year, we have focused on strengthening our EUV process portfolio to provide each of our customers with the finest technologies. Applying GAA structure to our next generation process node will enable us to take the lead in opening a new smart, connected world, while also to reinforcing our technology leadership.”

Details regarding Samsung Foundry can be found at www.samsungfoundry.com and www.linkedin.com/company/samsungfoundry.