Samsung ready for mass production of 3nm Exynos chipsets

Two years after starting mass production of its 3nm process node, Samsung is finally ready to manufacture 3nm Exynos processors for Android smartphones. In a joint press release with partner Synopsys, the Korean company said it “has successfully registered the production of its high-performance mobile SoC design” based on its Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technology. ). The company has moved from the FinFET transistor architecture to the GAA transistor architecture for its 3nm chips.

Samsung ready to mass produce its first 3nm smartphone chip

Samsung Foundry started mass production in 3nm in mid-2022, a few months before TSMC. However, while the latter has already made a 3nm smartphone chip for Apple (last year’s A17 Pro for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max), the former has yet to used its 3nm process for high-performance mobile SoCs. That’s finally changing this year. Samsung’s first 3nm mobile SoC is rumored to be a wearable chip for the Galaxy Watch 7 series.

Another will follow a few months later, the Exynos 2500 for the Galaxy S25 series. Before that, Samsung confirmed that its 3nm GAA process technology is ready to produce high-performance mobile chipsets. In semiconductor manufacturing, shrinkage is the final step in the design process. The chip design is now ready for mass production. The Korean company will soon start manufacturing its 3nm chip for upcoming watches.

Samsung’s first 3nm smartphone chipset will feature “a broad portfolio of Synopsys IP” alongside flagship CPUs and GPUs. “Our long-standing collaboration has resulted in cutting-edge SoC designs. This is a remarkable milestone to achieve the highest performance, power and area on the most advanced mobile processor cores and SoC designs in collaboration with Synopsys,” said Kijoon Hong, Vice President of SLSI at Samsung.

The processors in question should be ARM-sourced Cortex solutions. Samsung stopped designing custom CPU cores a few years ago. However, it now makes custom GPUs. The company has partnered with AMD to bring the latter’s RDNA graphics technology to mobile SoCs with its Xclipse line of GPUs. Initially exclusive to flagship Exynos processors, Samsung’s Xclipse GPUs are also found in mid-range chips, including the Exynos 1480 in the Galaxy A55.

Galaxy Watch 7 series could debut in July

Samsung is rumored to launch the Galaxy Watch 7 series at its upcoming Galaxy Unpacked event in July. If true, its first 3nm mobile processor will only arrive in a few months, although we’ll have to wait longer for its first 3nm smartphone chipset. The upcoming Unpacked will also bring Samsung’s next-gen foldables, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. We might also get new Galaxy tablets, TWS earbuds, and the market release of the Galaxy Ring in July.

May 8, 2024