The event, held today in Santa Clara, California, features top Samsung executives and industry experts reviewing progress on semiconductor technologies and foundry platform solutions that enable developments in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, 5G networking, automotive, the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced data centers and many other domains.

“We stand at the verge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a new era of high-performance computing and connectivity that will advance the daily lives of everyone on the planet,” said Dr. ES Jung, President and head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics.

“Samsung Electronics fully understands that achieving powerful and reliable silicon solutions requires not only the most advanced manufacturing and packaging processes as well as design solutions, but also collaborative foundry-customer relationships grounded on trust and shared vision. This year’s Foundry Forum is filled with compelling evidence of our commitment to progress in all those areas, and we’re honored to host and converse with our industry’s best and brightest,” Dr. Jung added.

Highlights from the U.S. Foundry Forum include:

The New 3nm GAE PDK Version 0.1 is Ready

Samsung’s 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process, 3GAE, development is on track. The company noted today that its Process Design Kit (PDK) version 0.1 for 3GAE has been released in April to help customers get an early start on the design work and enable improved design competitiveness along with reduced turnaround time (TAT).

Compared to 7nm technology, Samsung’s 3GAE process is designed to provide up to a 45 percent reduction in chip area with 50 percent lower power consumption or 35 percent higher performance. The GAA-based process node is expected to be widely adopted in next-generation applications, such as mobile, network, automotive, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT.

Conventional GAA based on nanowire requires a larger number of stacks due to its small effective channel width. On the other hand, Samsung’s patented version of GAA, MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET), uses a nanosheet architecture, enabling greater current per stack.

While FinFET structures must modulate the number of fins in a discrete way, MBCFET provides greater design flexibility by controlling the nanosheet width. In addition, MBCFET’s compatibility with FinFET processes means the two can share the same manufacturing technology and equipment, which accelerates process development and production ramp-up.

Samsung recently taped out the 3GAE test vehicle design and will focus on improving its performance and power efficiency going forward.

For more information, please refer to the Newsroom links for GAA infographic and video clip.

The Launching of a New SAFE–Cloud Program

As part of its ongoing efforts to support and enhance customers’ entire design workflow, Samsung Electronics launched the Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem Cloud (SAFE-Cloud) program. It will provide customers with a more flexible design environment through collaboration with major public cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, as well as leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, including Cadence and Synopsys.

To date, most foundry customers have built and managed design infrastructure on their own servers. The SAFE-Cloud program reduces this burden and supports easier, faster and more efficient design efforts by providing an excellent turnkey design environment with extensive process information (PDK, design methodologies), EDA tools, design assets (IP, library) and design services.

Customers can be assured of as much server and storage space as they need, as well as a safe environment optimized for chip design, due to Samsung Electronics’ verification of SAFE-Cloud’s security, applicability and expandability.

Utilizing the SAFE-Cloud platform, Samsung was able to accelerate the development of its 7nm and 5nm cell libraries in collaboration with Synopsys. In addition, Samsung, Gaonchips – a fabless design company in Korea – and Cadence have successfully completed design verification based on the platform.

“Making up-front investments in high-performance computing (HPC) servers and systems can be a challenge for a company like us,” said Kyu Dong Jung, CEO of Gaonchips. “SAFE-Cloud offers us a very flexible design environment without requiring investment in additional infrastructure, as well as reduced design TAT. I expect this program to provide more tangible business and technical benefits to us and the entire fabless industry.”

Process Technology Roadmap and Advanced Packaging Updates  

Samsung’s roadmap includes four FinFET-based processes from 7nm down to 4nm that leverage extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology as well as 3nm GAA, or MBCFET.

In the second half of this year, Samsung is scheduled to start the mass production of 6nm process devices and complete the development of 4nm process.

The product design of Samsung’s 5nm FinFET process, which was developed in April, is expected to be completed in the second half of this year and go under mass production in the first half of 2020.

Extensions of the company’s FD-SOI (FDS) process and eMRAM together with an expanded set of state-of-the-art package solutions were also unveiled at this year’s Foundry Forum. Development of the successor to the 28FDS process, 18FDS, and eMRAM with 1Gb capacity will be finished this year.

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.