Samsung first announced 1.4 nm process: chip will be put into production in 2027

At the recent Samsung wafer foundry forum, Si young Choi, president of Samsung Electronics foundry business, revealed in his keynote speech that Samsung will achieve mass production of 2nm process in 2025 and 1.4nm process in 2027.

On June 30 this year, Samsung took the lead in launching the production of 3nm process chips based on GAA (full surround gate) architecture. Si young Choi said that Samsung will continue to improve GAA related technologies and enter the manufacturing process of 2nm and 1.7nm nodes.

2025 may be the time point for Samsung and TSMC to face off on the 2nm process. Information shows that TSMC will introduce the GAA architecture at the 2nm node. It is expected to enter into risky trial production in the second half of 2024 and mass production in 2025. In terms of transistor technology oriented to GAA architecture, Samsung has adopted MBCFET (Multi bridge Channel Transistor) technology in the 3nm process. Compared with its 5nm process, it has achieved 23% performance improvement, reduced 45% power consumption and reduced 16% chip area. TSMC has introduced the nanosheet technology. Compared with the 3nm process of TSMC's enhanced version, its N2 process can achieve a 10% - 15% speed increase at the same power consumption and a 23% - 30% power reduction at the same speed.

In 2nm and below processes, high-performance computing will become an important application field and growth momentum. According to Counterpoint's prediction, the capital expenditure of global cloud service providers will increase by 23% year on year in 2022, and maintain a double-digit annual compound growth rate in the next three years, which will become the source of confidence for TSMC and its high-performance computing customers to maintain an optimistic attitude towards advanced processes. AI, Meta Universe and autopilot have accelerated the growth of large data centers and injected important momentum into the demand for advanced process chips. The market demand for AI accelerated chips is expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate of more than 30% in the next few years.

This also explains why TSMC's 2nm process not only introduces a standard process for mobile processors, but also introduces an integration solution for high-performance computing and chiplets. Samsung also said that more advanced process technologies are mainly aimed at high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, 5G/6G connectivity and automatic driving.

However, before the first quarter of 2022, mobile processors, which have become the largest source of profits for the head OEM, did not stop the downward trend of the manufacturing process. Recently, it was reported in the supply chain that Apple is expected to gradually replace its self-developed processors using the 3nm Finfet process within three years, and take the lead in developing chips using TSMC's 2nm GAA technology in 2025.

While improving the OEM technology, the head OEM manufacturers also actively invest in advanced packaging technology to provide systematic solutions. Si young Choi said that Samsung will accelerate 2.5D/3D heterogeneous integrated packaging technology to provide a systematic OEM service solution. Samsung's X-Cube 3D packaging technology with micro bump connection will be ready for mass production in 2024, and the bump free X-Cube packaging technology will be available in 2026.