Samsung just dropped $773 million on new machines to compete with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC.
This is a huge deal, actually. Samsung hasn’t really spent a lot of money improving their chipmaking machines for a while. But reports out of Korea say that they have spent about $773 million on the most advanced chipmaking machines. These machines come from ASML which is based in the Netherlands. Why is Samsung dropping this kind of cash? Obviously, it wants to better compete in the 2nm space.
These two, yes, only two, machines that Samsung has purchased are expected to be delivered by the middle of next year. And Samsung views this as a critical investment for ensuring that Samsung Semi is competitive around the world.
This is also Samsung’s first acqusition of high NA EUV machines intended for mass production of 2nm chips.
Samsung doesn’t want a repeat of 3nm
Samsung really stumbled when it came to the 3nm process, and it doesn’t want to repeat that. So it is prioritizing advanced processes at 2nm and below.
Last year, Jinman Han took over as head of Samsung’s foundry division and instructed his team to prioritize 2nm-based chip production. Samsung is going to be deploying these machines at its 2nm foundry lines were the Exynos 2600 is currently being manufactured. This is also likely the equipment that will be used to manufacture Tesla’s 2nm AI chips. Tesla and Samsung signed a $16.5 billion agreement for these chips back in July.
Currently, TSMC is the foundry that every company wants to use for their chips. Apple, Google, Qualcomm and MediaTek are all using TSMC to manufacture their current 3nm chips used in their devices. With Google having made the jump to TSMC this year for the Tensor G5. Though, Google will use TSMC again for the Tensor G6, it’s possible that it could jump back to Samsung after, for 2nm.
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