Samsung starts supporting small Korean fabless firms to use its 5nm fabrication process

According to the latest info, Samsung’s Design Solution Partners (DSPs) have started supporting the design of 5-nm ultra-fine semiconductor processes. DSP is a semiconductor design house that supports the design of fabless companies and acts as a ‘bridge’ to utilize Samsung’s foundry process.

It is evaluated that Samsung’s support for 5nm ultra-fine process design has provided an opportunity to advance the domestic system semiconductor and foundry ecosystem.

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As per the report, it was found that some design houses of Samsung Electronics’ DSP are working on a 5nm process project. An official familiar with Samsung Electronics’ DSP said, “Since the beginning of this year, domestic DSPs and Samsung Electronics have begun working on a 5-nm project, which is an ultra-fine process.”

The 5nm task promoted by DSP is estimated to support and optimize advanced semiconductor design related to artificial intelligence (Al).

Samsung officially announced the development of a 5-nm process based on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology in April 2019. It is mainly in charge of global top fabless such as Qualcomm and Broadcom or Samsung Electronics’ supply.

On the other hand, domestic small and medium-sized start-up fabless that lack design and foundry process optimization capabilities must produce semiconductors on consignment through DSP.

However, it has been difficult to design an ultra-fine process of 10 nm or less due to the small DSP scale so far. Although the design cost of the 5nm process design is 10 times higher than that of 28nm, the consensus is that the DSP’s ‘stamina! to handle it is insufficient when considering labor costs.

DSP’s 5nm design support is expected to contribute to the manufacturing of advanced microprocessor semiconductors such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and servers in domestic fabless. 

This also contributed to Samsung Electronics’ DSP ecosystem support. Samsung Electronics is expanding the scope of support to share semiconductor design assets (IP) and utilize prototype production to advanced processes such as 12-inch wafers.

Samsung has recently opened the door to the 5nm process through the ‘Multi Project Wafer’ (MPW) service that supports the development of prototypes by small and medium-sized fabless companies in Korea.

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