Samsung to offer 3nm foundry services in 2023

AnandTech discusses the latest process node announcements from Samsung. One of the new tidbits seems to be that 3GAE (3nm gate-all-around early) seems to have slipped a bit. The process technology is coming online a year later than expected, and it's no longer listed on Samsung's public roadmap.

This suggests the first 3nm node from Samsung that will be offered to clients could be the successor of 3GAE, aka 3GAP (3nm gate-all-around plus). Volume production on the 3GAE process is expected in 2023. Samsung taped out its first 3nm test chip a couple of weeks ago.

5LPP and 4LPP arrive this year

With no 3nm available to clients in 2022, Samsung is pitching its FinFET-based 4LPP and 5LPP nodes instead. These nodes will have different properties. The slides from Samsung talk about density and performance improvements for 5LPE and 5LPP, but for 4LPP there's only a mentioning of better power and performance characteristics.

It is noteworthy that Samsung now considers its 5 nm and 4 nm-class technologies as different node branches on its slides. Previously, the foundry considered its 4LPE as an evolution of its 7LPP process. Perhaps this is because 4 nm is set to offer very tangible PPAc (power, performance, area, cost) advantages over 5 nm, or because there are substantial internal changes (e.g., new materials, significantly higher usage of extreme ultraviolet lithography, etc.). -- AnandTech