Samsung reduces the use of legacy nodes to facilitate the production of 3nm chips

Update: Some sources claimed that Samsung is currently facing a shortage of talent for legacy nodes. The official information from the Samsung Foundry negates this news and clarifies it by stating that the information is baseless. The foundry mentioned that along with 3nm GAA process tech, legacy nodes are an important component of the company’s foundry business. We will continue to devise methodologies and strategies that will eventually take care of consumers’ needs [@SamMobile].

Original Story

According to reports, the tech firm Samsung is facing challenges and troubles with the manufacturing of chipsets based on the 3nm process. These difficulties are not related to technical setbacks. Rather they are linked to a shortfall of talent in the semiconductor space. It appears that the R&D of Samsung Foundry is short of manpower that would eventually cater to the needs of 3nm-based chipset manufacturing. Furthermore, the reports suggest that the company has restructured the team that will eventually resolve the problem.

As per the news reports from Korean media, the company has repositioned some employees from the foundry from legacy processes to 3nm processes. It appears that the company is facing a shortage of talent to support all the nodes. For this reason, the firm has reorganized the employees from 130nm and 65nm foundry processes.

On the other hand, if we explore this matter on a global scale we come to know that Samsung is not alone in facing such situations. The semiconductor companies in the USA, China, and Taiwan are undergoing similar situations i.e., shortage of manpower. It might be that TSMC has delayed the production of the 3nm process due to similar reasons. However, Samsung shipped its first order of 3nm chips in 2022. But unfortunately, the quality was not that good. These chips were supplied to a cryptocurrency mining company based in China. Furthermore, the latest flagship smartphone series by the company the Galaxy S23 utilize 4nm-based chipsets that are manufactured by TSMC.