Will 1.4-nm help Samsung catch up with TSMC, IFS?
Samsung, playing a distant second to TSMC for quite some time, has vowed to launch the 1.4-nm chip manufacturing node by 2027, leapfrogging both TSMC and Intel Foundry Services (IFS) by a wide margin. The South Korean electronics conglomerate is also confident about producing the 2-nm chips in 2025 as planned.
Both 1.4 nm and 2 nm chips will be fabricated using the gate-all-around (GAA) technology that Samsung pioneered on its 3-nm chips released this year. Archrivals TSMC and IFS will transition from Fin field-effect transistors (FinFETs) to GAA transistors at their 2-nm nodes due for commercial launch in 2025 and 2024, respectively.
Samsung unveiled its semiconductor fabrication roadmap at the annual Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2023.
In another major design overhaul, Samsung plans to incorporate an additional nanosheet in the 1.4-nm node, increasing the number of nanosheets from three to four. With more nanosheets per transistor, 1.4-nm chips will bolster switching capabilities as well as operational speed. Moreover, more nanosheets will lead to better control of the current flow, which in turn, generates less heat and reduces leakage current.
The GAA transistors address the FinFET limitations by achieving higher speed in smaller transistors than finFETs. While the GAA transistor architecture is 90% similar to FinFET, the remaining 10% difference comes from stacking horizontal nanosheets on top of one another. Nanosheet transistors provide a larger drive current for a given footprint compared to FinFET technology, and this high drive current is obtained by stacking nanosheets.
As mentioned above, Samsung was the first to implement the GAA transistors, which it calls multi-bridge-channel field-effect transistors MBCFETs). However, the South Korean electronics giant has been losing ground to TSMC and IFS in a relentless march toward smaller process nodes. Now, the GAA breakthrough in 1.4 process nodes provides it with much-needed breathing space in the nanoscale roadmap.
Samsung’s commitment to mass-produce 1.4 nm chips is around four years away, and a lot could happen during this time. Still, it shows that Samsung is fully in the game and vying for parity with TSMC in the mega-fab contest.
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