Samsung Electronics confirmed on Tuesday that it has won an order from Japanese artificial intelligence company Preferred Networks (PFN) to manufacture artificial intelligence chips for the company using a 2-nanometer foundry process and advanced chip packaging services.
Junichiro Makino, Vice President of PFN and Chief Technology Officer of Computing Architecture, also confirmed in a statement that Samsung's chips will be used for PFN's high-performance computing hardware to build large language models, and so on.
This is also the first cutting-edge 2-nanometer chip foundry order officially announced by Samsung. But this news actually spread in the industry in February, when sources revealed that Samsung would build artificial intelligence chips for PFN, but Samsung kept the identity of the partner confidential at that time.
And this cooperation is also seen as a major milestone in the artificial intelligence industry and chip foundry industry. For PFN, obtaining the most cutting-edge 2-nanometer chips will help it gain more competitive advantages; On Samsung's side, this contract represents a crucial victory in its challenge to TSMC's dominant position.
The chip industry is currently racing towards more advanced technology nodes. As a leading enterprise, TSMC has long formulated production plans for 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer chips. Samsung's progress on 2-nanometer chips is likely a signal to rewrite the global chip competition landscape.
Cruel competition
Kyung Kye hyun, the head of Samsung's device solutions department, pointed out last year that starting from the 2-nanometer node, Samsung will adopt the Ring Gate Array (GAA) process, which is expected to surpass TSMC in technology within the next five years. TSMC applied GAA one year later than Samsung.
According to an insider, it is intriguing that PFN has been a customer of TSMC since 2016, and choosing to cooperate with Samsung at this time may represent some new industry trends.
The source revealed that PFN may value Samsung's comprehensive chip manufacturing capabilities, covering all programs from chip design to production and packaging. The shift of PFN to Samsung may also mean the possibility of Samsung leveraging more TSMC customers, paving the way for Samsung to form alliances with other important customers.
Technically speaking, Samsung plans to start mass using the 2-nanometer process for mobile applications in 2025, expand to high-performance computing chips in 2026, and enter automotive chips in 2027. TSMC plans to mass produce 2-nanometer chips by 2025, according to research firm TrendForce, which represents a new level of competition among technology giants.
The industry has also analyzed that due to Samsung adopting GAA technology earlier than TSMC, it may have an advantage in the 2-nanometer competition. As for another large company, Intel, it may not be able to follow its technological innovation schedule in 2025 due to issues with lithography equipment.
In short, the specific development of chip parameters cannot be determined yet, but the industry has also seen other competitive strategies.
It is reported that Samsung is preparing to attract customers, especially Qualcomm's orders, with discounted prices on the 2-nanometer process. More subtly, Qualcomm is also a loyal customer of TSMC and has always been a major customer that TSMC wants to compete for with its 2 nanometer technology.
However, Qualcomm has not clearly expressed its intention and has entrusted the development and trial production of 2-nanometer chips to TSMC and Samsung. The current situation is that Samsung is partnering with PFN, and TSMC is steadily seizing Apple's orders. Qualcomm may be the key to the next stage of victory for these two companies.