Samsung announces commercialization of newest EUV process

Samsung Electronics announced Thursday it will start wafer production of the 7-nanometer Low Power Plus with extreme ultraviolet lithography technology at a tech day event held in Silicon Valley.

Samsung Tech Day is an annual event to announce the chipmaker’s technology road map and introduce the newest semiconductor solutions for its enterprise clients.

The foundry technology using extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, known as the most advanced process technology, enables the use of a single mask to create a silicon wafer layer compared to other processes that require up to four masks to create that same layer. 

The commercialization of the newest process node 7LPP will provide customers the ability to build a full range of high-tech products and applications in the fields of the fifth-generation cellular network, artificial intelligence, enterprise and hyperscale data centers, the internet of things and automotives, Samsung said.

Samsung’s 7LPP process can reduce the total number of masks by about 20 percent compared to a non-EUV process, enabling customers to save time and costs, according to the firm.

Compared to the previous 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung’s 7LPP technology delivers up to a 40 percent increase in area efficiency with 20 percent higher performance or up to 50 percent lower power consumption, it added.

“This fundamental shift in how wafers are manufactured gives our customers the opportunity to significantly improve their products’ time to market with superior throughput, reduced layers and better yields. We’re confident that 7LPP will be an optimal choice not only for mobile and HPC, but also for a wide range of cutting-edge applications,” said Charlie Bae, executive vice president of foundry sales and marketing team at Samsung.

The tech titan’s memory business also debuted the world’s first 256-gigabyte 3DS RDIMM for enterprise clients at the event. Samsung’s 256GB 3DS RDIMM helps improve enterprise performance and enables memory-intensive servers capable of handling up to 16 terabytes.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)