Recently, Samsung officially clarified: it does not match the facts. In order to focus on advanced manufacturing processes, foundry duo Samsung and TSMC have continued to expand production since last year. So, who will benefit from Samsung and TSMC's "shopping" for 3-nanometer process chips? What signals do wafer foundries show when they make efforts to mature the process?
For a long time, Samsung and TSMC have been in a decisive battle for the 3nm process. In the process, the two have competed and decided their lives. Whether it is expanding production or fighting for a 3nm process, Samsung and Intel are making frequent moves to catch up with TSMC. It is reported that last year, TSMC's 3nm process was officially mass-produced, and Apple was its first customer. At that time, TSMC planned to hold a 3nm mass production ceremony to dispel doubts from the outside world.
Fearing that it would not be able to win TSMC, Samsung rushed to mass-produce 3nm, but the Korean media believed that the price behind Samsung's approach was too painful. In addition, Samsung has reassigned some of its fab employees from traditional processes to the 3nm process.
In fact, as early as 2020, Samsung Electronics was striving to catch up with TSMC and planned to mass produce 3nm chips in 2022. Until the end of 2022, Samsung chip and foundry executives underwent a major reshuffle, only to accelerate the improvement of 3nm yield rate to compete with TSMC; Transfer, which includes 5nm, 3nm, elite backbone. This year, TSMC's 3nm process is fully loaded and is expected to contribute 4%-6% of revenue (TSMC's 5nm monthly production capacity).
In this fierce competition environment, for Samsung, the user group jokingly said: Lee Jae-yong's "core" has been exhausted for a year, and Samsung only dares to move forward and dare not retreat. At the same time, it is obvious that the utilization rate of wafer foundry capacity has generally declined, and it is inevitable that multiple price wars will be set off in the industry in the future.
