The leap to the three nanometer scale is getting closer every day. The main producers have been preparing their production lines for this scale for some years now and, in some time, we will see how the SoCs that are in charge of commanding our devices have already taken another step in terms of miniaturization. A new evolutionary leap that allows for greater energy and thermal efficiency. If you are not very clear about what these jumps provide, I recommend that you read this.
One of the key players in this evolution is TSMC, which already started working on it in 2017, and from time to time we have learned how it was evolving, and even that some technology companies have been testing this technology for some time. However, being the most relevant actor does not mean being the only one, and in some cases not even the first to score certain especially relevant milestoneslike the one we are going to see in this case.
And it is that, as we can read in Gizchina, Samsung would have overtaken TSMC, becoming the first to start mass production of chips on the three-nanometer scale. Without a doubt, although this does not threaten TSMC’s position in the third-party chip production market, it is an important signal to the market, from Samsung, that the Korean technology company is also capable of being at the forefront of this sector.
It is important to clarify, however, that for the production of the first chips on this scale, Samsung has chosen its facilities in Hwaseong, cIts production capacity is lower than that offered by its main factory, located in Pyeongtaek. This is mainly due to two reasons. The first is that the Hwaseong facility is the one that, as a general rule, initially concentrates the production of integrated components when there is a jump in scale, and the second is that, at least for now, this production is directed exclusively to the market of Chinese manufacturers. of specialized accelerators for cryptocurrency mining.
Thus, we can understand that Samsung has opted for a first phase of limited scope, in which to be able to evaluate the performance, efficiency and reliability of its three-nanometer packages, before taking the necessary steps to jump into the great market of smartphones and tablets, which has been waiting for a long time for the arrival of this new evolutionary step. A step that, at this point, is already so close that it almost seems that we can touch it.
