Samsung foundry chief vows to catch up with TSMC

Samsung Electronics’ newly appointed head of the foundry division has acknowledged his company’s woes in the chipmaking game. “We have to admit that our technology falls behind other big manufacturers,” Han Jin-man said in his inaugural message to employees, according to Korean media reports. “We must break the vicious cycle of missing opportunities and having to compete again at the next node.”

While Samsung was the first to introduce gate-all-around (GAA) transistor technology in commercial semiconductor manufacturing, it wasn’t a success. Struggling with low yield, the firm failed to lure customers away from market leader TSMC. Samsung’s next opportunity is the 2nm node, which has been scheduled for high-volume production in the second half of next year. If a report from Taiwanese media outlet Liberty Times is to be believed, TSMC has already achieved 60 percent yield for 2nm manufacturing.

Han’s top priority is getting things right this time. “Although we were the first to achieve the transition to the gate-all-around process, there are still many shortcomings in commercialization,” he wrote.

Samsung’s share in the foundry market at large slipped to 9.3 percent last quarter, according to Trendforce. The market research firm attributed this to the company’s advanced processes generating revenue are approaching the end of their lifecycles and increased price pressure in more mature nodes. TSMC’s market share grew from 62.3 percent to 64.9 percent.