Historic deal with ASML will give Samsung an edge in 2nm chip manufacturing
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Update time : 2024-01-06 10:32:32
In early December 2023, Samsung Electronics President Lee Jae-yong traveled to the Netherlands with South Korean President Yoon Seok-yul to reach an important business agreement with photolithography manufacturer ASML. Samsung and ASML agreed to jointly invest 1 trillion won (about $762 million) to build a research facility in South Korea to develop cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing technology using EUV lithography. Dr. Kyung Kye-hyun, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics and head of the Device Solutions Division, emphasized that the company's latest agreement will help it gain access to next-generation high-numerical-aperture (High-NA) EUV lithography.
Currently ASML is the world's only manufacturer of EUV lithography machines, which are used to make chips with 7nm and below process, however, the annual production of such equipment is only 40~50 units, which is in short supply. Lee Jae-yong's visit to South Korea is also aimed at negotiating with ASML for priority supply, Kyung said, adding that Samsung has already obtained priority supply rights for High-NA EUV lithography and believes that it can make use of this opportunity to optimize the use of High-NA technology in the production of DRAM memory chips and logic chips. Engineers from ASML and Samsung will work together to improve EUV chip manufacturing technology at an upcoming chip research facility in Dongtan, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The focus of Samsung's deal with ASML is not simply to bring 2nm chip manufacturing equipment to South Korea, but to build a partnership with the company to better utilize next-generation equipment. Sources say ASML plans to launch 10 units of 2nm chip fabrication equipment in 2024, and Intel has already booked six of them. The latest model of the High-NA EUV lithography machine can increase the light gathering capacity from 0.33 to 0.55, enabling finer exposure patterns for 2nm process nodes. Over the next few years, ASML hopes to increase the capacity of this latest equipment to 20 units per year. After successfully acquiring ASML's latest lithography machine, Samsung plans to start production of 2nm chips by the end of 2025, however, some third-party analysts say there could be delays in this plan, depending on market conditions and production yields, among other things. Qualcomm a few years ago the Snapdragon 888, Snapdragon 8 Gen1 chips exclusively entrusted to Samsung OEM, using 5nm, 4nm process, but due to Samsung's process problems, this generation of chips appeared serious heating problems, resulting in Qualcomm had to urgently turn to seek TSMC OEM. Recently there is news that Qualcomm's fifth-generation Snapdragon 8 is expected to return to Samsung for foundry manufacturing, using the 2nm process. However, TSMC, Samsung, Intel are ambitious for the 2nm process, actively show customers the latest technology, trying to compete for orders.
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