According to fresh sources, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD) is rumored to become Samsung Foundry’s first 3-nanometer (3nm) customer. A new report from the Taiwanese publication DigiTimes, states that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) close relationship with the Cupertino, California technology giant Apple Inc has made AMD consider choosing Samsung for its 3nm orders.
It’s not just AMD who is interested in the south Korean tech giant’s 3nm chip process node, but it seems that Qualcomm is also interested in the said technology which uses a different transistor design.
AMD’s strong performance in the growing enterprise market has also placed it at the top of research firm IC Insight’s list of top ten semiconductor growth companies for 2021. It is reported that the chipmaker will see a revenue growth of a remarkable 65% this year, which would result in the chip-making company bringing in $16 billion in revenue in its fiscal year 2021.
The analyst first, IC Insights, also states that the growth of AMD is mostly fuelled by solid data center sales, in which the company has emerged as a “leading supplier” in a “booming market.” on another hand NVIDIA Corporation is set for 54% growth during 2021 in the same segment alongside China’s premium foundry, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), which has a projected growth of 39%.
The reason why it’s being believed that AMD will be moving to Samsung is the close relationship that TSMC enjoys with Apple. This factor might cause either AMD or Qualcomm or probably both to shift towards the 3nm node of Samsung.
TSMC’s chief Dr. C.C. Wei talked about his company’s 3nm chip process during TSMC’s third-quarter 2021 investor call. During the talk, Dr. Wei outlined that:
Finally, I’ll talk about the N3 and N3E status. Our N3 technology will use a FinFET transistor structure to deliver the best technology maturity, performance, and cost for our customers. Our N3 technology development is on track. We have developed complete platform support for both HPC and smartphone applications. N3 risk production is scheduled for 2021, and production will start in the second half of 2022. We continue to see a high level of customer engagement at N3 and expect more new tapeouts for N3 for the first year as compared with N5.
We also introduced N3E as an extension of our N3 family. N3E will feature an improved manufacturing process window with better performance, power, and yield. Volume production of N3E is scheduled for 1 year after N3.
Our 3-nanometer technology will be the most advanced foundry technology in both PPA and transistor technology when it is introduced. With our technology leadership and strong customer demand, we are confident that the N3 family will be another long and last — will be a large and long-lasting node for TSMC.
