In the past two years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been focusing on the high-end mobile phone market, and naturally cannot avoid the "strongest performance" chips in press conferences and promotions. However, the power consumption and heating of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8

In the past two years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been focusing on the high-end mobile phone market, and naturally cannot avoid the "strongest performance" chips in press conferences and promotions. However, the power consumption and heating of Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 have been continuously transformed by two generations, and the Android flagship and Qualcomm are not welcomed by consumers.

Finally, this "fever" that lasted for two generations ended with Qualcomm's transfer to TSMC's foundry Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Behind it is the 5nm (including 4nm) advanced process chip war has basically ended. TSMC has once again knocked down Samsung with undisputed technical and customer advantages in the past two years.

Picture/Qualcomm

But the war for 3nm nodes has also begun.

Qualcomm and Nvidia "return" Samsung

According to South Korea Economic News this month, Shen Xiangbi, vice president of Samsung Electronics Foundry Division, said at a recent business briefing that the company is not behind TSMC in terms of customer relationships in 3nm process. Many companies from China and the United States are cooperating with Samsung to develop 3nm process semiconductors, including Qualcomm (mobile phone SoC), Nvidia (GPU), Baidu (AI chip), IBM (server CPU), etc.

If nothing unexpected happens, we will see products using Samsung 3nm process going on the market from 2014 to 2015, including Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This may not be what mobile phone consumers, especially mobile game players, want to see, but there are naturally reasons for the decisions of these manufacturers.

It is said that the reason why these companies chose Samsung 3nm for chip foundry is based on 3nm's technical capabilities, past strategic partnerships, and the necessity to ensure multiple supply chains.

In fact, in the context of Intel 3nm still in the future, global technology companies have only TSMC and Samsung in terms of advanced 3nm technology. From the perspective of diversified foundry strategy, it is not uncommon for chip design manufacturers to adopt multiple foundry factories in some products in order to consider risk diversification.

Picture/Nvidia

But Nvidia and Qualcomm's choices are obviously not just about risk considerations. In addition to choosing Samsung for OEM at the 7nm node, Nvidia's GPU has been produced by TSMC for a long time, and the cooperation between the two companies is very stable.

However, the rising cost is enough to change a lot of things. Nvidia founder Huang Renxun answered media questions about price increases after the RTX 4090 was released, saying that Moore's Law is dead, the price of 12-inch silicon crystal is much more expensive than in the past, and the cost of advanced technology is much higher, so the company has to raise prices.

According to DigiTimes, the current price per piece of TSMC 3nm FinFET process Crystal has exceeded US$20,000, which doubles the price of the 7nm process and a 25% increase compared to the 5nm process, and may further increase in 2023.

Although the price of Samsung's 3nm GAA technology has also risen, its previous advantages have continued in terms of price. In the 7nm stage, Samsung once won Nvidia by relying on TSMC's quotation "much lower than" TSMC. The situation of

Questcomm is different. It has long been mainly engaged in chip foundry with Samsung. However, after the failure of two consecutive generations of Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it has to turn to TSMC, which has a more mature process, to produce Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which has just been released.

In addition to the higher quotation, it is more considering Samsung rather than TSMC. It is mainly because TSMC prefers to meet Apple's order needs, and secondly there is a secret contract with Samsung's flagship phones to use Snapdragon chips. These may be the reasons that prompted Qualcomm to "return" to Samsung's foundry again.

compete for customers and technology

The price increase is not what TSMC wants.Advanced processes are approaching the physical limit of silicon materials. The cost of building a 3nm production line has risen sharply to US$15-20 billion. In addition, greater pressure on order demand are all the reasons that prompted TSMC to propose higher quotations. TSMC President Wei Zhejia said, "Even if the economy declines, TSMC will not lower the price."

corresponds to the high quotation. In the early stage, only technology giants have the financial resources to choose TSMC 3nm. The supply chain news pointed out that next year, the only customers of TSMC 3nm will be Apple and Intel, and other willing customers have not yet given a timetable. In August, Intel reported that it was postponed the first half of next year due to product design and process verification issues, and then to the end of the year, which almost included TSMC 3nm order demand next year.

This does not mean that Samsung is better than TSMC in customer relationships.

Both OEM factories are expected to start production in 2023. After the initial production and yield rate climb, large-scale mass production will begin in 2024. TSMC 3nm process will be the first to be applied to Apple A17 next year. Samsung 3nm's first customers are mainly domestic mining machine chip manufacturer PanSemi. The production capacity provided to Nvidia, Qualcomm and other customers is expected to be until 2024 at the earliest.

Of course, the competition for 3nm customers will eventually return to technology, especially in the field of chip foundry, the core is still technical strength. In June this year, Samsung announced that it would be the first to mass-produce 3nm in the world. The mass production time of TSMC 3nm was first postponed from the original end of September to later in the fourth quarter of this year, and the latest news said it would be postponed until the beginning of next year.

Picture/Samsung

But the key is still the yield. Samsung seems to have taken the lead in the 3nm node, but the actual production yield is hard to describe. It is said that the actual 3nm yield is only 20%, and the main reason is considered to be the GAA process.

Samsung was the first to adopt the GAA process on the 3nm node, which theoretically can achieve smaller sizes and lower power consumption. It is hailed by Samsung as the "changer of the rules of the game", and TSMC is also expected to introduce this process on 2nm. However, some analysts say that the technology is not yet mature. Recently, some media pointed out that Samsung is cooperating with Silicon Frontline Technology in the United States to jointly improve the yield of the 3nm GAA process.

TSMC continues to use more mature FinFET processes at the 3nm node. The first generation 3nm is 1.3 times higher than the 5nm crystal density, with a power consumption reduced by 30-35%, and a performance improvement of 15-20%. Wei Zhejia also hinted at the 2022 TSMC Technology Forum, "the opponent's 3nm is still a little different than TSMC's 4nm."

At least for now, the problem of Samsung's 3nm is mainly concentrated on yield. Such a low yield of is not enough to support large-scale mass production. The so-called official mass production is more like a trial operation, which may be the orders of Qualcomm and Nvidia to be scheduled to 2024 Reason for the year.

price increase is imperative. The battle for

3nm will be affected, and the earliest impact will be the mobile phone market.

Picture/Apple

iPhone 15 Pro version will be the first batch of 3nm products. According to Apple's recent two generations of differentiated strategies in the performance of Pro and Standard version chips, iPhone 15 may use 4nm A16 chip.

. When MediaTek has not yet made it clear, since Qualcomm's 3nm production capacity needs to wait until 2014, and Qualcomm's flagship chips are usually released in the fourth quarter, the actual product will be launched until the beginning of the next year. Android manufacturers may have to wait until the beginning of 2025 to launch flagship phone products using 3nm process chips.

In addition, TSMC has also planned at least 4 enhanced versions in the 3nm node, including N3S (density enhancement), N3X (ultra-high performance), N3E (enhanced), N3P (performance enhancement), etc., trying to meet the needs of customers in different industries, especially high-performance computing customers.

In fact, we will also see manufacturers competing for 3nm in the PC market in the next two years. is expected to be equipped with the 3nm process on the Apple M2 Pro chip, which will be installed on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and will be released next year; Intel will also hand over the GPU chip of Meteor Lake to TSMC 3nm foundry. It was originally planned to be cut in the second quarter of this year and shipped in 2023, but due to the product design and process verification issues mentioned above, I don’t know when the ticket will be delayed again.

But on the other side of the continuous advancement of advanced process chips, we may have to face the upcoming price increase wave on flagship-level products. It is estimated that the manufacturing cost of Apple A16 is about US$110, accounting for more than 10% of the US version of the iPhone 14 Pro, while the cost of the A17 is expected to rise to US$150. According to Apple's habit, it is unlikely that this part of the rising cost will be swallowed by itself, which also means that at least the price increase of the Pro model is almost imperative.

Android flagship will face the same problem after all. In fact, in the past two years, part of the increase in the cost of advanced process chips has also been transmitted to Android flagships. By this year, the price of flagship phones has basically reached more than 4,000 yuan. According to The Paper, the price of Xiaomi 13, which will be launched with TSMC's 4nm chip, will also be significantly increased by 15-20%, and the expected price will be around 4,500 yuan.

Xiaomi 13 Rendering, picture/@Onleaks

written at the end

In the past ten years, smart phones and other consumer electronic products have been an important driving force for the continuous advancement of chip advanced technology. chip foundry is a game where the stronger the stronger the winners take all. The reason why TSMC and Samsung can become the peerless twins is largely because of Apple and Samsung behind it. Last year, Apple contributed 26% of TSMC's annual revenue, and nearly half of its sales in advanced process chips.

The continuous advancement of advanced process chips is also an important foundation for a series of consumer electronic products such as smartphones to achieve ultimate performance and power consumption, and even ten years of glory. Especially in the past two or three years, everyone has discovered that our lives are not leaving the changes brought about by chip progress.

is not only an individual, but the core role of chips in the entire electronics industry is being paid more and more attention. China, the United States, , and EU are all trying to strengthen their own chip industry, among which advanced processes represent the forefront of chip technology. The 3nm battle is neither the beginning nor the end.