To overtake Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung announced the use of EUV technology 7-nanometer process to complete the verification

In the foundry market, the competition between TSMC and Samsung has always been a concern for everyone. Among them, although Samsung has such VIP customers as Qualcomm, but in the 7nm process node, Qualcomm is expected to switch back to TSMC, If Samsung wants to be favored by more customers, it can only start from the process technology. This is why Samsung skipped the 7-nanometer process of non-EUV technology, directly to the reason of 7-nanometer LPP EUV process technology. Today, Samsung finally announced His 7-nanometer LPP process has completed the physical certification of Synopsys, meaning that the 7-nm EUV process will be available for global production.

In fact, currently among the world's leading foundries, Intel's 10-nanometer process has not yet been completed, so it is farther away from the 7-nanometer process. TSMC's 7-nanometer production process is relatively smooth, there will be Apple , Hass, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD and other customers began to streamline, mass production. However, TSMC's first-generation 7-nanometer process, the use of traditional multiple exposure technology, has always been to 2019 2nd generation 7-nanometer process Only use EUV lithography.

Grofont also took a similar route from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. It is expected that the 7-nm DUV process that will be mass-produced in 2018 will be the traditional deep ultraviolet lithography technology. For this, the AMD 7nm Zen 2 processor with a frequency up to 5GHz will be used. The 7-nanometer process technology of Globodget was introduced in early 2019. The next generation in 2020 is the 7-nm EUV process technology.

Compared to other competitors, Samsung is the most active in EUV technology. That is, Samsung directly skipped the first-generation non-EUV lithography 7-nanometer process, directly using the 7-nm LPP process added EUV technology, and is scheduled to be 2018 The mass production began in the second half of the year. Recently, Nes Technology and Samsung have jointly announced that Samsung's 7-nanometer LPP process technology has completed the certification of the IC verifier.

After Samsung completes this certification, Samsung's 7-nanometer LPP process can immediately provide certified technical data, including DRC design rule checks, LVS layout and schematics, metal-filled technology files, etc., to relevant customers. This also means Samsung's 7-nanometer LPP process officially entered the stage of mass production.

At present, under the fierce competition in EUV lithography, it is also one of the important business items for big manufacturers to grab EUV lithography machines. According to previous news, in ASML's EUV lithography machine, TSMC has ordered about 10 units, and Samsung has ordered About 6 units, Intel ordered 3 units, and Groovy's EUV order quantity is unknown. SMIC also ordered an EUV lithography machine, which will be used for 7-nanometer process technology research and is expected to be delivered by early 2019. In the case of various manufacturers holding EUV lithography machines, it seems that in the future to win on the 7-nm node, we must compare everyone's final technology and management capabilities.