It’s been unclear if Samsung was selling this cutting-edge technology to any customers, despite being the first silicon foundry in the world to announce its switch to 3nm technology and gate-all-around (GAA) transistors. Beating TSMC to the 3nm punch is one thing, but would any customers want to be the first in line for it? In a bit of a plot twist, the company has at least one customer, according to a recent news release from Korea, and it’s an American corporation. Sadly, we don’t currently know who this company is.
The US company hired ADTechnology, a fabless Korean startup, to design and manufacture a 3nm server device that makes use of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). For the order, ADTechnology revealed that it will be utilizing Samsung’s 3nm process. This is the first time that we can remember that a 3nm chip made by Samsung has been made public. Both businesses speak highly of the agreement and state that it will be among the largest initiatives in the sector, but they don’t provide many specifics. A 2.5D architecture with logic and HBM memory positioned on top of an interposer is described in the PR.
Tom’s Hardware claims that Samsung offers three alternative 3nm technologies on their customer menu at the moment. Bitcoin miners were given access to SF3E, the initial version of its design. According to its plan, it will be followed by a more advanced version called SF3 the following year, and SF3P in 2025. In 2025, it will then transition to 2nm manufacture. This is a reflection of TSMC’s FinFlex strategy and the three “flavors” of 3nm products that the company is preparing. The primary distinction in this case is that, although TSMC won’t transition to GAA until it reaches 2nm in 2025, Samsung has already advanced past FinFet transistors.
Only a week ago, it was reported that Samsung was still experiencing yield issues with its most advanced technology. Now, this new agreement for 3nm server chips has been announced. Growing pains are common on a new node, particularly when the transistor architecture is completely novel. But it was said that the fact that Samsung was still struggling to achieve 70% yields over a year later was turning off potential customers. That is obviously untrue, at least in the case of ADTechnology.