Samsung Delays 1.4 Nanometer Process Until 2029: High-NA EUV Lithography at the Center of Strategy
According to reports from South Korean media, Samsung has set the debut of its 1.4 nanometer manufacturing process, named SF1.4, for 2029. This process is expected to leverage High-NA EUV lithographic technology. The news comes at a time when the Korean foundry appears to have stabilized production yields on 3 and 2 nanometer processes, allowing it to focus more seriously on its future roadmap.
Samsung aimed to be the first to produce 3 nm chips with Gate All Around (GAA) architecture by 2022, but yields turned out to be extremely low, with very few products actually using that process. Significant large-scale production only began last year. The difficulties faced with SF3 seem to have better equipped the company for the subsequent jump to 2 nanometers, known as SF2, with variants starting to be introduced this year.
A Roadmap No Longer Achievable
The next significant technological leap is SF1.4, originally slated for 2027 in the official roadmaps but now considered an unreachable milestone in that timeframe. Since last summer, and again in recent weeks, 2029 has been indicated as the new timeline.
This shift puts Samsung on a similar timeline to that of its major competitors: TSMC is expected to launch A14 in a comparable timeframe, while Intel has scheduled 14A for late 2027 or early 2028, according to the roadmap from its Foundry division. In all cases, it is likely that at least another year will need to pass before these technologies translate into products actually available on the market.
A common element expected to unite Intel and Samsung is the use of High-NA EUV lithography. However, some doubts have emerged regarding Intel's strategy, which may not adopt this technology from the outset of the 14A process but instead reserve it for a subsequent iteration (Intel has a Plan B). This approach would effectively mirror the parallel strategy anticipated by Samsung.
Samsung plans to use High-NA EUV only for the exposure of certain critical layers, before reverting to conventional EUV and DUV systems for the remaining stages of the production process. The main advantage of this technology lies in the ability to complete the processing of the more delicate layers in a single pass, avoiding the multiple exposures required by standard numerical aperture (Low-NA) EUV systems.
As is typical with every new lithographic generation, the first High-NA systems still present challenges in terms of cost and reliability, although to a lesser extent than what was seen with the debut of EUV technology. A substantial improvement in reliability is expected by 2029. Currently, Samsung has approximately three High-NA systems, which are being used to test and fine-tune the production process.
TSMC's position is different; based on currently available information, it does not plan to introduce High-NA EUV lithography before 2030 or 2031, opting for a more cautious adoption compared to its two competitors.