Hi all, interesting article on Samsung and its very ambitious Chip investment plans. Not sure if this has any implications for Aixtron's end-markets, but nevertheless worth a read. Regards, Fel
(Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. is pouring $116
billion into its next-generation chip business that includes
fabricating silicon for external clients, betting it can finally
close the gap on industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Co. as soon as two years from now.
South Korea’s biggest company will mass-produce 3-nanometer
chips in 2022, a senior executive at its foundry division told
attendees at an invite-only event last month. That target, which
hasn’t previously been reported, means it’s on a path to start
churning out the industry’s most advanced semiconductors the
same year as its Taiwanese rival expects to pass that milestone.
Samsung is already developing initial design tools with key
partners, Park Jae-hong, executive vice president of foundry
design platform development, told conference delegates.
If Samsung succeeds, that will be a breakthrough for its
ambition to become the chipmaker of choice for the likes of
Apple Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. that now rely on
foundries like TSMC. The business isn’t new to Samsung, which
was the first manufacturer of Apple’s A-series iPhone
processors, but the company’s renewed push is now shepherded by
billionaire heir Jay Y. Lee, who wants to see it establish tech
leadership across advanced sectors like chipmaking and 5G
networking to power its next phase of growth. Park’s comments
suggest Samsung is accelerating its bid to compete with iPhone-
chipmaker TSMC, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this year’s
wave of stay-at-home demand for personal electronics.
“To actively respond to market trends and lower the design
barrier for competitive systems-on-chip development, we’ll keep
innovating our cutting-edge process portfolio, while
strengthening Samsung’s foundry ecosystem through close
collaboration with partners,” Samsung’s Park told attendees,
according to people at the event.
Read more: Samsung Takes Another Step in $116 Billion Plan
to Take on TSMC
Samsung’s aim is in line with TSMC’s target of offering
volume production of 3nm chips in the second half of 2022. But
the Korean company also hopes to go one better by adopting
what’s known as the Gate-All-Around technique, regarded by some
as game-changing technology that can more precisely control
current flows across channels, shrink chip areas and lower power
consumption. TSMC had opted for the more established FinFET
structure for its 3nm lines.
“Samsung is catching up to TSMC very fast and it seeks to
achieve dominance over its competitor by adopting the new
technology for the first time,” said Rino Choi, a professor of
materials science and engineering at Inha University. “However,
if Samsung can’t improve production yields of the advanced node
fast in an initial stage, it may lose money.”
Already the world’s largest maker of computer memory and
displays, Samsung wants a bigger share of the $250 billion
foundry and logic-chip industry that’s set for accelerated
growth with the advent of artificial intelligence and fifth-
generation wireless technology. In 2019, TSMC controlled more
than half of the contract chipmaking market while Samsung had
just 18%, according to TrendForce data.
Lee has taken a close interest in the matter. He flew to
ASML Holding NV’s headquarters in the Netherlands last month to
discuss supply of its extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV)
machines, gear that’s indispensable to the creation of the most
advanced semiconductors. Other top executives have toured major
cities from San Jose to Munich and Shanghai, hosting foundry
forums and negotiating deals.
Some analysts question Samsung’s ability to carve out a
significant share of a market dominated by TSMC, which spends
some $17 billion annually to ensure it remains at the forefront
of both technology and sheer capacity. For its part, Samsung’s
semiconductor division plans to spend $26 billion on capital
expenditure in 2020, but that’s been largely in support of its
dominant memory business and not all of its expertise in making
memory is directly relevant to creating advanced logic chips.
Processors are more complex to manufacture than memory and
their production yields are harder to control and scale up in
the same way. Foundry customers also require bespoke solutions,
imposing another barrier to rapid expansion and also making
Samsung dependent on customers’ designs. But the Korean giant
can draw confidence from its work with Nvidia Corp., whose chief
executive officer sung the praises of collaborating with Samsung
on customizing the manufacturing process for its latest graphics
card silicon.
The risks and initial setup costs have whittled down the
number of companies capable of even competing in the EUV-based
chipmaking industry. Intel Corp. this year announced it’ll
consider outsourcing production of its most important chips for
the first time, highlighting the complexities of the business
and leaving Samsung and TSMC as the two major competitors. While
Samsung has scored some marquee customers, TSMC’s long-standing
relationships with clients allow for better coordination on
design and manufacturing, leading to superior yields, said
Sanjeev Rana, an analyst at CLSA Securities Korea.
“In terms of chip performance, Samsung and TSMC are neck
and neck,” Rana said. “Most smartphone, high-performance
computing, high-end server applications need leading-edge
process fabrication for performance and power efficiency
reasons. This is where the competition between TSMC and Samsung
comes into the picture.”
Read more: Behind Samsung’s $116 Billion Bid for Chip
Supremacy
The Korean company is making rapid advances, in part
because even with TSMC’s deep pockets, the Taiwanese chipmaker
cannot expand capacity quickly enough to satisfy all demand.
Customers also prefer to use more than one foundry, which also
works to Samsung’s advantage. The Korean company has already
secured enough orders from major clients to keep its currently
most-advanced 5nm process lines busy for the next few years, a
company executive told Bloomberg News. The electronics giant
increased its roster of semiconductor clients by 30% last year,
according to another official. In recent months, Nvidia and IBM
Corp. are among those that turned to Samsung for some of their
chipmaking needs, while Qualcomm Inc. has reportedly awarded the
company a 1 trillion won ($858 million) contract to build its
flagship mobile processors.
Samsung started up its first dedicated plant for EUV-based
fabrication in the southern city of Hwaseong this year, while a
second facility in Pyeongtaek is slated for mass production in
the second half of 2021. The growth rate of its foundry business
is expected to significantly exceed that of the market, which is
likely to be in the high single-digits, Shawn Han, senior vice
president of the semiconductor business, said during a recent
earnings call. The GAA technology that Samsung’s chosen is
expected to be adopt by TSMC for 2nm processes in 2024, but
there’s a chance that schedule could be moved up to the second
half of 2023, said Kim Young-soo, an analyst at SK Securities.
“Technically, Samsung could turn the table in 2023 before
TSMC kicks off the 2nm production,” Kim said. “There will be
overflow orders of making application processor chips and edge
computing devices. The key to expand the market share is how
many EUV machines Samsung can secure.”
Officials at Samsung believe the company has a competitive
edge from its experience building both the chips and the devices
that they go into, like Galaxy smartphones. It can foresee and
address the engineering requirements of its clients. Samsung
believes its other trump card is an ability to package memory
and logic chips into a single module, improving power and space
efficiency. But some companies may be wary about outsourcing
production to a direct competitor. TSMC executives have from
time to time highlighted the fact that the Taiwanese chipmaker
doesn’t compete with any of its customers, a clear jab at
Samsung.
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