"Investment plan and grand goal of Samsung Electronics
On April 24, 2019, Samsung Electronics announced its future investment plans and objectives. Samsung Electronics's investment plan will invest 133 trillion won (about US $120 billion) in the next 12 years (1999-2030) to strengthen the competitiveness of system LSI and wafer foundry business and expand non memory business. Among them, 73 trillion won (about US $66 billion) of domestic R & D and 60 trillion won (about US $54 billion) of production infrastructure are expected to invest an average of 11 trillion won (about US $10 billion) per year.
Overall, Samsung's goal is to maintain the first position in the world of memory chips, pick down TSMC in the field of wafer foundry, beat Sony in the field of CMOS image sensors, maintain a leading position in Intel in terms of revenue, and sit firmly on the throne of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer.
Development history of Samsung Electronics Semiconductor Division
The semiconductor division of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. refers to the memory department and system logic department under the device solution business group LSI) and foundry; The memory includes DRAM and NAND flash, and the system logic chip includes system level chip SOC, Image Sensor CIS, display driver chip, smart card chip and power management chip.
The annual revenue of Samsung Electronics Semiconductor Business Division accounts for about 30% of the total revenue of Samsung Electronics. For the terminal products of the two business divisions of Samsung Electronics, information and mobile phones (it & Mobile) and consumer electronics, it is to widen the distance between the lower competitors and narrow the gap between the front leaders, And strengthen the important role of the degree of differentiation of key end products.
Samsung Electronics was founded in 1969. In 1974, it established the semiconductor division by acquiring 50% of the shares of Hankook semiconductor and began to enter the semiconductor industry; Developed watch chip in 1975; Production of bipolar transistors began in July 1977; one thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine In, it acquired wholly-owned Hantai semiconductor and renamed Samsung Semiconductor; In 1983, it officially entered the memory industry and developed the first 64K DRAM in Korea; In 1988, the semiconductor business and electronic and wireless communication business were merged to establish Samsung Electronics; Started to develop DSP in 1994; The first 8-bit MCU was launched in 1995; 700MHz alpha processor was launched in 1997; The 0.25 µ m 66MHz mobile application processor S3C44B0X was released in 2000; SOC R & D center was established in 2002; In 2005, he entered the field of CMOS sensors and began wafer foundry business.
Samsung Semiconductor has seven production bases in the world, located in Qixing, South Korea and Huacheng, South Korea 、 Anyang, Korea, pingze, Korea, Austin, USA, Suzhou, China, Xi'an, China.
Samsung electronics semiconductor division is currently the world's largest memory chip manufacturer, ranking first in the global revenue list in 2018.
Strengthen wafer foundry and remove TSMC
1. Development history of Samsung Electronic wafer foundry
In 2005, Samsung Electronics began to enter the field of 12 inch logic process wafer foundry, which has been for 15 years. By focusing on advanced process nodes and committed to providing customers with optimized products and services, at present, the wafer foundry business has grown into one of the foundry companies with low power consumption and high-performance SOC facing the global fame industry.
From 2005 to 2009, Samsung Electronics' industrial revenue was less than $400 million. By 2010, apple began to contract Apple's A-Series processors (including A4, A5, A6 and A7), and the OEM operating revenue exploded. In 2010, the overall OEM revenue surged to $1.2 billion (including $800 million for Apple's A-Series processor products). Due to the surge in shipments of mobile terminal products such as apple mobile phones, Samsung Electronics's wafer foundry revenue rose, reaching $3.95 billion by 2013. In that year, Apple's foundry revenue accounted for 86% of the company's total foundry revenue. It can be said that the OEM revenue of Samsung Electronics from 2010 to 2013 was completely supported by apple.
Due to various reasons such as the failure to break through the yield of the 20 nm process, Samsung Electronics lost the order of apple A-Series processor in 2014, and all Apple A8 processors were OEM by TSMC; In 2015, it was not easy to grab some orders for A9 processors, but because the yield and power consumption control were not as good as TSMC, all A10 processors in 2016 were covered by TSMC. Due to the loss of apple, the revenue of wafer foundry decreased in 2014 and 2015.
In order to fill the production capacity, Samsung Electronics OEM department actively attacked and grabbed orders for Qualcomm's application processor and server chip, AMD's microprocessor chip, NVIDIA's graphics processing chip, Ambarella's visual processing chip and Tesla's self driving system chip, so as to make up for Apple's dilemma of running a single order. In 2016, the revenue reached US $4.4 billion, exceeding the level in 2013, setting a new record for the revenue of Samsung Electronic wafer foundry.
2. Wafer foundry splitting
On May 12, 2017, Samsung Electronics announced to adjust the company's business department, separate the wafer foundry business department from the system LSI business department, and establish Samsung Electronics wafer foundry. It is reported that the new Department is mainly responsible for manufacturing non memory chips for global customers - Qualcomm and NVIDIA, so as to compete with pure wafer foundry companies led by TSMC.
According to the data of IC insights, a market research company, Samsung Electronics' wafer foundry revenue reached US $4.6 billion in 2017, ranking fourth in the global wafer foundry market with a market share of 6%. The top three are 56% of TSMC, 9% of global foundries and 8.5% of UMC; In 2018, the revenue of wafer foundry reached US $10 billion, accounting for 14% of the market, ranking second in the world.
Samsung Electronics ranked the second largest wafer foundry company in the world in 2018. It was not a significant increase in performance, but actually caused by the division. The reason is that the wafer foundry department is independent and no longer subordinate to the system LSI business. Therefore, now the production revenue including processor chips (exynos, etc.), CIS image sensors, display driver chips and power management chips is counted as the revenue of the wafer foundry department. Therefore, the revenue is rising all the way and the market share is soaring overnight.
But don't underestimate Samsung's wafer foundry.
Let's talk about the production capacity and process of Samsung Electronics's wafer foundry.
3. Foundry and capacity
By the end of 2018, Samsung had 5 exclusive foundry lines, including 4 12 inch and 1 8-inch.
Kiheung's S1, built in 2005, is Samsung's first 12 inch logic OEM production line. At present, it mass produces 65 nm to 8 nm low-power chips. Its products are mainly used in computer networks, smart phones, automobiles and the growing Internet of things market.
S2 in Austin, USA, is transformed from the original 8-inch factory; Clean room construction was started in August 2010, and 12 inch logic products were put into operation in April 2011, reaching 43000 pieces in that year; At present, mass production of 65 nm to 14 nm products. The R & D center was established in 2010 to develop high-performance, low-power and complex CPU and system IP architecture and design for the system LSI department.
S3 of hwasung, South Korea, is a 12 inch logic production line completed and put into operation in 2018. At present, it mainly produces 10 nm to 8 nm products and will be the main production plant of Samsung's 7 nm products.
S4 of Huacheng, South Korea, is a special production line for CMOS image sensor (CIS), which is transformed from the original DRAM production line fab11. Fab13, a 12 inch DRAM production line located in Huacheng, is also stepping up its transformation into a special production line for CMOS image sensors.
Since the construction of EUV special production line in Huacheng, South Korea began in February 2018, it is stepping up its construction. The plant will invest US $6 billion and will be completed in the second half of next year and officially put into operation in 2020. At the initial stage, it is mainly 7 nm products, supplemented by EUV lithography machine.
Korean Qixing's 8-inch wafer foundry line Fab 6 was opened in 2016, covering nodes from 180 nm to 70 nm. The process technology includes embedded flash memory (eflash), power components, Image Sensor CIS and the production of high-voltage process, which is mainly aimed at Korean local fabless.
At present, Samsung Electronics OEM business can provide 65 nm, 45 nm and 32 / 28 nm HKMG, 14 nm FinFET, 10 nm FinFET, 7 nm FinFET EUV process. Customers include apple, Qualcomm, ultramicro semiconductor, Xilinx, NVIDIA, NXP and telechips, a local company in Korea.
By the end of 2019, Samsung Electronics will have 7 exclusive foundry lines, including 6 12 inch lines and 1 8 inch line.
4. Wafer foundry process: pursue advanced manufacturing process and never stop
In 2005, Samsung Electronics entered the wafer foundry industry; In 2006, the first customer signed 65 nm contract; In 2009, the 45nm process began to receive orders. In November of the same year, a logic process development team was established in the semiconductor research institute to strengthen the wafer foundry business; In January 2010, the first 32 nm HKMG process was launched.
Due to the loss of Apple's orders, Samsung increased its investment in process research and development, trying to prove its leading position in technology.
In 2014, the first generation of 14 nm FinFET process, called 14lpe (low power early), was launched and successfully mass produced in 2015; In January 2016, the second generation 14 nm FinFET process was launched and mass produced, called 14lpp (low power plus), with power consumption reduced by 15% for exynos 8 octa and Qualcomm snapdragon 820 processors; In May 2016, the third generation 14 nm FinFET process was launched and mass produced, called 14lpc; The fourth generation 14 nm FinFET process, called 14lpu (low power), was launched in November 2016 Ultimate, low power ultimate). On the basis of 14 nm, a miniature version of 11lpp was introduced.
On October 17, 2016, the first generation of 10 nm FinFET process was mass produced, called 10lpe. The first product is the application processor exynos 8895, and the other customer is Qualcomm snapdragon 830. The new process performance can be provided by 27% and the power consumption will be reduced by 40%; In November 2017, mass production of the second generation 10 nm FinFET process, called 10lpp, was started. The performance was improved by 10% and the power consumption was reduced by 15%. The first product was exynos 9810, and another customer was Qualcomm Xiaolong 845; In June 2018, the third generation 10 nm FinFET process, called 10lpu, was launched, and the performance was improved again. Samsung Electronics adopts 10 nm triple pattern lithography technology.
Samsung Electronics stressed that the life cycle of 10 nm process series (including 8 nm derivatives) is very long. 8lpp / 8lpu has the greatest competitive advantage before the production process is converted to EUV lithography technology. However, we should note that the revenue of TSMC's 10 nm process has declined quarter by quarter, giving people the feeling of giving up. The 7-nanometer process has become the largest revenue source of TSMC.
Then let's take a look at the layout of Samsung Electronics's process below 10 nm.
8lpp: 8lpp has the greatest competitive advantage before the production process is converted to EUV (extreme ultra violet) lithography technology. Combined with the key process innovation of Samsung 10nm technology, 8lpp provides additional advantages in performance and gate density compared with 10lpp. Exynos 9 series (9820) was successfully mass produced in November 2018.
7lpp: 7lpp will be the first semiconductor process technology using EUV lithography solution. Two points should be emphasized here. First, through cooperation with ASML, the maximum EUV source power of 250W has been developed, which is the most important milestone for EUV to enter mass production. The deployment of EUV lithography technology will break the obstacle of Moore's law expansion and pave the way for the development of single nano semiconductor technology; Second, the research and development of key IP will be completed in the first half of 2019 and put into operation in the second half of 2019.
5lpe: 5lpe will adopt Samsung's unique smart scaling solution and integrate it into the 7lpp technology based on EUV to realize the advantages of larger area expansion and ultra-low power consumption.
4lpe / LPP: 4lpe / LPP is the last time Samsung Electronics Applied highly mature and industry proven FinFET technology. Combined with the mature technology of previous 5lpe process, it has smaller chip area and higher performance, which can quickly achieve high yield mass production and facilitate customer upgrading.
3lpp: 3lpp will use the new mbcfettm (multi bridge channel fet) structure for the first time, based on the unique gaafet (gate all around FET) technology of Samsung Electronics. Gaafet needs to redesign the transistor bottom structure, overcome the physical and performance limits of current technology, enhance gate control and greatly improve the performance. It is expected to put into risk trial production in 2020.
Source: Samsung Electronics ppt
5. Strengthen packaging technology and layout foplp
In April 2019, Samsung Electronics acquired the foplp business of Samsung motor (Semco). Samsung Electronics hopes to match foplp packaging technology to challenge TSMC's info again, hoping to win the OEM order of Apple's A-Series processors in 2020.
First, let's take a look at foplp. Foplp is the abbreviation of fan out panel level packaging.
It is reported that foplp can reduce the packaging thickness, increase the wire density and improve the electrical performance of products. The large panel working platform can improve the production efficiency and can be applied to 5g, AI, biotechnology, self driving, smart city, Internet of things and other related products. Due to its cost advantage, it is optimistic about the future development of panel level fan-out packaging technology. At present, companies actively distributing foplp include oast company Amkor, ASE / DEC, jcet, nepes and Licheng technology
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