Samsung Electronics' foundry business has fallen behind TSMC in recent years due to the loss of major customers such as Qualcomm and NVIDIA. However, the company is still confident of winning big customers for its below-3nm process, according to Zheng Jitae, CTO of Samsung Electronics' foundry department.
In a speech titled "The Latest Technology Trends in the Foundry Industry" at "Semiconductor Expo 2023", Zheng pointed out that customers' order selection is a long-term process that takes about three years. He believes that the unfavorable situation in attracting customers will improve in the future.
"In the foundry business, 'stability' is the most important from the customer's perspective," Zheng said. "It is not easy to adopt new technologies from the beginning. We often say that there is a marriage between the foundry and the customer. This can fully reflect the closeness of the business structure."
Zheng explained that if chip manufacturers have problems, customers will suffer as well, so they must be cautious. However, he said the company is confident of winning big customers for its below-3nm process.
Samsung has started 2/1.4nm process cooperation negotiations with customers. The GAA process is a sustainable technology for the future, while FinFET is difficult to make further improvements.
Regarding the competition among manufacturers in mainland China, Zheng said that in the field of advanced packaging (post-processing), the competitive landscape of Samsung, TSMC and Intel will continue. He added that developing back-end processes is easier for Chinese companies than front-end processes, but it is often difficult for new players to join the competition unless they have a large number of customers for feedback (such as TSMC), or are IDMs that do both design and manufacturing (like Samsung or Intel).
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