Samsung and TSMC have yet to see yield improvements in their respective 3nm technologies. Though the Taiwanese foundry has already secured Apple as a long-term client, with future SoCs said to be mass produced on the updated N3E process, Samsung’s 3nm GAA node has yet to pick up steam, with a report stating that Qualcomm will not place orders if those yields do not climb to 70 percent.
Current 3nm GAA yields stand at 50 percent; Samsung’s own LSI Division may refuse to place orders if it does not see progress
There were reports that Samsung fulfilled the first 3nm GAA batch to Chinese customers for their Bitcoin firm, but Korean media Chosun reports that the chips were incomplete in their truest form, lacking the SRAM that goes into the logic chip. A complete 3nm GAA wafer is said to be difficult to produce, hence why the Korean manufacturer is said to be experiencing yields of just 50 percent, the same as TSMC. 3nm GAA is said to be superior to FinFET, but it also has its share of production problems.
At its current 50 percent yield, an official familiar with Samsung’s plans has said that at this rate, it will be difficult to secure customers such as Qualcomm unless a 70 percent yield is achieved. Even Samsung’s own LSI division, which designs chipsets and modems for a variety of applications, may not accept orders if yields remain low. For those that do not know, companies like Qualcomm have to pay full price for the wafer batch, including the defective ones.
At a 50 percent yield, only five out of 10 wafers are considered usable, and with Qualcomm being forced to pay for all 10, the San Diego company will have little choice but to increase the prices of its Snapdragon products, commencing a vicious cycle that will financially affect its smartphone partners and consumers. If Qualcomm continues to see Samsung unable to fulfill those required conditions, its Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will likely be mass produced on TSMC’s N3E process, resulting in another loss for the Korean manufacturer.
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