By Kim Yoo-chul
Samsung Electronics has started mass-producing mobile processor chips using a finer 14-nanometer FinFET technology, which will dramatically strengthen its semiconductor productivity.
“Samsung is ready to ship Exynos 7 Octa mobile application processors to our major clients. This chip is the industry's first to be produced using a 14-nanometer FinFET process on a three-dimensional (3D) transistor structure,” Samsung said in a statement.
The Exynos will power the company's next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, which will be unveiled on March 1, a day ahead of this year's Mobile World Congress exhibition in Barcelona.
The Exynos lineup will be among the first to see the shift from 20-nanometer to 14-naomeer. It said the technology will be used in new products later this year.
Nanometer technology can be seen as referring to chip generations. In general, the smaller the number, the more transistors could be fit on the chip and therefore the more powerful it is. A processor chip functions as a brain to entirely control systems in devices.
Samsung said its latest Exynos could be up to 20 percent faster than chips with a 20-nanometer level technology. It also uses 35 percent less power and features a longer battery life.
Samsung said the development will significantly help it widen the technology gap with its fellow rivals.
It is securing customers such as Apple, Qualcomm and Nvidia thanks to its proven competitiveness and superiority in the 14-nanometer FinFET production arena.
“We have no problem meeting clients’ demands,” Kim Ki-nam, president of the company's semiconductor division, told reporters recently.
Samsung has long been struggling to improve its capability to fabricate logic-based processor chips, which are hard to manufacture due to high-quality standards, while memory chips are easy to produce as these are used to write and read data.
“This is a breakthrough for Samsung. Samsung's logic chip division will turn profitable. We expect the division to generate 1.1 trillion won in operating profit this year,” said Hi Investment analyst Song Myeong-sup.
Samsung sources confirmed this, while the company said it discussed supplying the chips in an investor relations session on its first quarter earnings.
“Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia and Sony will be our key clients. Samsung technology effectively packs more processing power into a smaller space and consumes less power with advantages in pricing,” said a Samsung official.
Rival TSMC is still at the 20-nanometer level as its mainstream.
Strategy Analytics said Samsung's share in the global mobile processor chip market stood at 5 percent last year; however, it could increase the share as Qualcomm is reportedly known to have overheating issues with its Snapdragon 810 chips.