Samsung Foundry 3 nm yields reportedly at "mid to high 50% range"

Samsung Foundry is rumoured to make its big comeback in the semiconductor manufacturing space with its upcoming 3GAP node. Industry bigwigs like IBM, Nvidia and Qualcomm have signed up for it, likely due to capacity issues at TSMC. However, a (machine translated) report from South Korean news outlet DealSite.co.kr says the chipmaker still has some issues to iron out.

The yields for Samsung Foundry's 3 nm node (3 GAA/3 GAP not specified) are still allegedly in the "mid to high 50% range". It sits in line with an earlier rumour which pegged it at around 60%. Industry analysts say the" GAA process method is not yet stable", explaining the lackluster numbers. Thankfully, its 4 nm node is faring better with around 75% yields. This is good news for Google as its Tensor G4 SoC for the Pixel 9 series will be manufacrured on Samsung 4LPP+.

Nevertheless, Samsung will have to improve yields if it hopes to compete with TSMC and Intel Foundry in the future.Samsung must succeed with its 3 GAP node as it will be used to manufacture next year's Exynos 2500, a chip that has been hyped to be Samsung's return to mobile AP dominance. It will lay the foundation for its successor (SF2), which will supposedly be used by Qualcomm to manufacture its Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 for Galaxy SoC and by Arm for its Cortex-X CPU core.

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