Samsung charts progress from 10nm to 3mm Gate-All-Around

Samsung Electronics is making rapid progress in 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technology, which could see first tape out in 2021 and mass market production as early as 2022.

Compared to 7nm technology, Samsung’s 3GAE process aims to deliver a 45% reduction in chip area with 50% percent lower power consumption, and 35% higher performance, potentially benefiting applications as diverse as mobile, network, automotive, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT.   Samsung's GAA MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET) uses a nanosheet architecture, enabling greater current per stack. WhileFinFET structures must modulate the number of fins in a discrete way, MBCFET™provides greater design flexibility by controlling the nanosheet width.

At Samsung Foundry Forum event in Santa Clara California, company executives outlined the fabrication roadmap from today's 10nm down to 3nm. Some highlights:

• 14/10nm - these are in high volume manufacturing. These will remain long-lasting technologies into the future
• 8nm - the most advanced non-EUV technology
• 7nm FinFET - currently under mass production for mobile applications. The first tape out was in 2018. IP re-use is supported.
• 6nm FinFET -- mass production of 6nm process devices in the second half of 2019
• 5nm FinFET - the product design of Samsung’s 5nm FinFET process, which was developed in April, is expected to be completed in the second half of this year and go under mass production in the first half of 2020
• 4nm FinFET - will represent the maximum scaling of the 7nm family, and development will be completed later this year - 
• 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process development is on track and will leverage MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET) based on nanosheet technology. A Process Design Kit (PDK) version 0.1 for 3GAE was released in April. This will be the future beyond FinFET.

“We stand at the verge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a new era of high-performance computing and connectivity that will advance the daily lives of everyone on the planet,” said Dr. ES Jung, President and head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Electronics fully understands that achieving powerful and reliable silicon solutions requires not only the most advanced manufacturing and packaging processes as well as design solutions, but also collaborative foundry-customer relationships grounded on trust and shared vision. This year’s Foundry Forum is filled with compelling evidence of our commitment to progress in all those areas, and we’re honored to host and converse with our industry’s best and brightest,” Dr. Jung added.