TSMC widens edge over Samsung
The Taipai Times recently offered the following interesting discussion concerning the TSMC versus Samsung rivalry:
“As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp. has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and Samsung, have overtaken it and become the main force in advanced chip manufacturing.”
Competitors Samsung and TSMC are both setting up factories in the US and are both recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS Act.
In late 2021, Samsung announced a $17B plan to build a new fab in Taylor, Texas. In April of 2024, the US announced that Samsung had received a $6.4B subsidy from the U.S. government under the CHIPS Act. Recently Samsung, benefiting from the subsidies of the CHIPS Act, has increase its investment in the US, even boasting that it would build 11 wafer fabs in Texas within 20 years, with a total investment of up to $200B.
Samsung’s new plant in Taylor was/is ambitiously targeting the most advanced 4-nanometer and 2-nanometer chip production. It also promised to establish a complete semiconductor industrial chain ecosystem, including advanced packaging plants, and research and development centers.
However, at the end of 2024, the US Department of Commerce cut the Samsung subsidy to $4.75B due to the fact that construction of the new fab in Texas was behind schedule, and the 2-nanometer process yield of the parent fab in Pyeongtaek was poor. It was recently reported that yields of the second-generation 3nm GAA yields are just 20%. This reason might also be why Samsung was reported to have postponed ASML’s deliveries of cutting-edge EUV equipment for its Taylor plant.
This in turn resulted in the new Texas fab not receiving orders from major customers. Samsung soon announced the removal of South Korean staff and canceling of the investment plan for the advanced packaging fab.
At about the same time, the TSMC Arizona 4-nanometer production line started mass production ahead of schedule in the fourth quarter of last year.
Thus the Tiapai Times concludes “The gap between Samsung and TSMC is widening.”
In addition, the Tiapai Times concludes that if the US administration seeks to reduce or completely cancel subsidies in the current CHIPS Act contracts, it will be Samsung, not TSMC that will on the chopping block.
TSMC Will Dominate 2nm Chip Production
TSMC is scheduled to begin high volume 2nm chip production in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year.
TrendForce Corp analyst, Joanne Chiao, reports that TSMC is expected to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year.
TSMC has taken almost all of the available global business in chips used in artificial intelligence applications by using its 3nm process technology and it expects its 2nm process to attract even more orders, as more customers have expressed interest in using the new technology.
With TSMC announcing a new $100B investment in the US over the next four years earlier this month, the company could increase capacity by as much as 20% or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030.
Samsung, so far, has reportedly not built a large customer base for its 2-nanometer process, and its major user is expected to come from its internal system LSI units, Chiao said.
In a recent report from South Korea’s “The Bell”, it is reported that Samsung has introduced a gate-all-around architecture, which reduces undesirable variability and mobility loss, to their 2nm process, (similar to TSMC), but reportedly TSMC’s yields are more than double Samsung’s.
Meanwhile, Intel lags behind TSMC and Samsung. However, Intel’s cooperation with UMC is expected to help it generate more sales in the foundry business, Chiao added.
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