• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Samsung Delays Texas Chip Fab to Consider 2nm Process Upgrade

Nomad76

News Editor
Staff member
Joined
May 21, 2024
Messages
735 (3.42/day)
Samsung Electronics is delaying construction at its planned new chip factory in Taylor, Texas. The company is considering upgrading the factory to produce more advanced 2 nm chips instead of the originally planned 4 nm chips. Samsung will make a final decision on this in Q3 2024. In April, the US government provided $6.4 billion to support Samsung's $40 billion investment in Texas chip facilities, including the Taylor factory. However, reports now suggest Samsung may skip 4 nm production at Taylor altogether.

The Taylor factory was expected to open by 2026, but equipment orders have been delayed while Samsung re-evaluates the plans. This upgrade consideration comes after Samsung recently appointed a new CEO for its semiconductor business (Device Solutions Division) to focus on new growth opportunities. While Samsung's memory chip profits surged in 2024, its previous 3 nm chip was not very successful. By going straight to 2 nm in Taylor, Samsung likely aims to leapfrog competitors in advanced chip manufacturing (TSMC, and Intel plan to produce 2 nm-class chips in the US by the end of this decade).



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Joined
May 8, 2018
Messages
1,571 (0.65/day)
Location
London, UK
Samsung is the new intel 14+++++++++++++++ approach I guess.
 

MxPhenom 216

ASIC Engineer
Joined
Aug 31, 2010
Messages
13,009 (2.49/day)
Location
Loveland, CO
System Name Ryzen Reflection
Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5900x
Motherboard Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master
Cooling 2x EK PE360 | TechN AM4 AMD Block Black | EK Quantum Vector Trinity GPU Nickel + Plexi
Memory Teamgroup T-Force Xtreem 2x16GB B-Die 3600 @ 14-14-14-28-42-288-2T 1.45v
Video Card(s) Zotac AMP HoloBlack RTX 3080Ti 12G | 950mV 1950Mhz
Storage WD SN850 500GB (OS) | Samsung 980 Pro 1TB (Games_1) | Samsung 970 Evo 1TB (Games_2)
Display(s) Asus XG27AQM 240Hz G-Sync Fast-IPS | Gigabyte M27Q-P 165Hz 1440P IPS | LG 24" IPS 1440p
Case Lian Li PC-011D XL | Custom cables by Cablemodz
Audio Device(s) FiiO K7 | Sennheiser HD650 + Beyerdynamic FOX Mic
Power Supply Seasonic Prime Ultra Platinum 850
Mouse Razer Viper v2 Pro
Keyboard Corsair K65 Plus 75% Wireless - USB Mode
Software Windows 11 Pro 64-Bit
Joined
Feb 18, 2005
Messages
5,847 (0.81/day)
Location
Ikenai borderline!
System Name Firelance.
Processor Threadripper 3960X
Motherboard ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming
Cooling IceGem 360 + 6x Arctic Cooling P12
Memory 8x 16GB Patriot Viper DDR4-3200 CL16
Video Card(s) MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 2X OC
Storage 2TB WD SN850X (boot), 4TB Crucial P3 (data)
Display(s) 3x AOC Q32E2N (32" 2560x1440 75Hz)
Case Enthoo Pro II Server Edition (Closed Panel) + 6 fans
Power Supply Fractal Design Ion+ 2 Platinum 760W
Mouse Logitech G602
Keyboard Razer Pro Type Ultra
Software Windows 10 Professional x64
Delaying so they can squeeze more money out of the government. I don't understand why the government doesn't just build and own the factories themselves... oh wait because that's "communism".
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2013
Messages
7,563 (1.77/day)
There's a very good chance that there would be a glut of fab capacity 5-10 years down the line. The ones you're seeing highlighted now are mostly in the West or Taiwan remember China's probably doing this at an even larger scale!
 

GenericUsername2001

New Member
Joined
May 1, 2024
Messages
25 (0.11/day)
Delaying so they can squeeze more money out of the government. I don't understand why the government doesn't just build and own the factories themselves... oh wait because that's "communism".
To be fair, even the Communist Party in China has decided that subsidizing corporations to build fabs for them makes more sense than having the government try to do it directly. Setting up this sort of thing is well out of the wheel house of any existing government agency, so a brand new agency would have to be created, tons of people hired & trained, and so on; its not like the 1920s when the government could end a rail strike by having the army run the trains, since building & running fabs is a much, much more complicated task needing very educated and specialized workers.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2023
Messages
842 (1.19/day)
System Name Asus G16
Processor i9 13980HX
Motherboard Asus motherboard
Cooling 2 fans
Memory 32gb 4800mhz
Video Card(s) 4080 laptop
Storage 16tb, x2 8tb SSD
Display(s) QHD+ 16in 16:10 (2560x1600, WQXGA) 240hz
Power Supply 330w psu
Joined
Jan 11, 2022
Messages
913 (0.85/day)
Delaying so they can squeeze more money out of the government. I don't understand why the government doesn't just build and own the factories themselves... oh wait because that's "communism".
Delaying because they can see the writing on the wall good times are over and they will need their money to keep things going
 
Joined
Feb 15, 2018
Messages
260 (0.10/day)
by the looks of it, TSMC has mass production of 4nm like this year with 3nm coming late 2024 or early 2025 for other chips other than apple.

no use making 4nm chips in 2027 by Samsung or intel..(well u can use it for many other products but still, not for cutting edge technology).

even mid range, GPUs,cpus won't be running on 4nm in 2027.
 
Joined
Jan 11, 2022
Messages
913 (0.85/day)
by the looks of it, TSMC has mass production of 4nm like this year with 3nm coming late 2024 or early 2025 for other chips other than apple.

no use making 4nm chips in 2027 by Samsung or intel..(well u can use it for many other products but still, not for cutting edge technology).

even mid range, GPUs,cpus won't be running on 4nm in 2027.
AMD probably will or 6 is more likely for their graphics cards
 
Joined
Jun 1, 2021
Messages
310 (0.24/day)
by the looks of it, TSMC has mass production of 4nm like this year with 3nm coming late 2024 or early 2025 for other chips other than apple.

no use making 4nm chips in 2027 by Samsung or intel..(well u can use it for many other products but still, not for cutting edge technology).

even mid range, GPUs,cpus won't be running on 4nm in 2027.
Not everything needs to be on the bleeding edge nodes. There is still going a ton of chips that will use 4nm for years to come.

Things like cheap SoCs(relatively speaking), SSD Controllers(that are now just barely going to 7nm), AI accelerators, legacy products(remember that many need to be kept in production for a decade due to industry/business needs), NICs, etc etc.

There is a ton of things still in older nodes that could slowly migrate to 4nm in 2027. This includes SoCs for low-end and mid-range Phones too, to put into perspective the Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 which is released in Q2 2024 still uses TSMC N6.

The upcoming Switch 2 is likely to use Samsung 8nm node that was used for Ampere too.
 

Nomad76

News Editor
Staff member
Joined
May 21, 2024
Messages
735 (3.42/day)
by the looks of it, TSMC has mass production of 4nm like this year with 3nm coming late 2024 or early 2025 for other chips other than apple.

no use making 4nm chips in 2027 by Samsung or intel..(well u can use it for many other products but still, not for cutting edge technology).

even mid range, GPUs,cpus won't be running on 4nm in 2027.
Intel is advancing with 3nm, with (at least) its Oregon and Ireland fabs operating at full capacity. Sidenote, while we don't cover the data center industry in detail on TPU, it's worth noting the surge in new and expanded data centers, driven by increasing AI demand. 4nm won't die but it seems production will be on low levels, the majority going with 3nm, others betting on 2nm from 2027 onward.
 
Top