Samsung dreams of 2nm chips in 2025, 1.4nm by 2027

Samsung expects to have 2nm chips in mass production by 2025 and plans to deliver mass production using a 1.4nm process by 2027, aiming to expand the capacity of such advanced process nodes "by more than 3X." The plans were detailed by the Korean electronics giant at its annual Samsung Foundry Forum event in San Jose, …

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we need 2nm chips?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

If you want cheaper/smaller/faster computers, yes

[Zolko]

Ah, OK, then no.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

If you want to know what your iPhone would be like if it used vacuum tubes (ie valves) see the great what if...2

[Anonymous Coward]

cleanrooms first ... fabrication equipment to be swiftly installed

Until ASML tell them the machines are 2" bigger than the rooms they built.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: cleanrooms first ... fabrication equipment to be swiftly installed

Semiconductor engineers would just fill the room with acid to etch the concrete then fill with more concrete

[Snowy]

Be quick

and they can steal Apple away from TSMC

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Be quick

I thought Apple were already a major customer of Samsung. I suspect that each generation of iThing gets its parts from whoever comes in with the best quote.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Be quick

>I thought Apple were already a major customer of Samsung

Everyone is a major customer of Samsung, including Samsung.

Nobody is happy about it, including Samsung.

[DS999]

Re: Be quick

Apple buys OLED displays (at least most of them) from Samsung. AFAIK that's the only thing they have been buying from Samsung for years now.

[Bartholomew]

What exactly is a 2 nm process ?

If you think about the Van der Waals radius of a silicon atom, it is about 210 pico-metre, so 2 nanometres of distance would be nearly 5 silicon atoms wide. And 1.4 nanometres of distance would be just over 3 silicon atoms wide.

And if you step back and think about dopants used in a semiconductor, it is typically that one dopant atom is added per 100 million atoms to change them from an insulator.

So I'm guessing that a "Samsung 2 nm process" is a 100% made up marketing name to shift more product ?

[Richard 12]

Re: What exactly is a 2 nm process ?

Yes. What exactly is it that they're claiming is 2nm long?

It's not been the gate for a very, very long time.