With self-driving vehicles becoming increasingly common on everyday roads, automobile manufacturers are looking to collaborate with leading chip manufacturers that can synchronize effectively with their ADAS, or advanced driver assistance systems. Samsung has recently announced that it will be utilizing its cutting-edge 5-nanometer (nm) node to manufacture Ambarella’s latest SoC for self-driving cars. The Ambarella CV3-AD685 SoC is equipped with the latest AI engine called Cvflow, which is designed specifically for ADAS in autonomous cars.

This new chip family is built for ADAS and features a high-performance, power-efficient, and scalable design, complementing a wide range of solutions for assisted driving while advancing vehicle automation. The integrated CV3-AD685 SoC fuses information from various sensors for robust L2+ to L4 autonomous driving, and can interpret data from cameras and radars to determine driving scenarios. For reference, L2 autonomous driving refers to partial automation, while Level 4 Automation refers to high-level automation, where a car can pull over using guided sensors even without human intervention.

Samsung Foundry, with its industry-leading process technology and advanced 3D-packaging solutions, is powering many of the latest mobile, HPC, and automotive solutions. Samsung will be applying its automotive IPs, latest processes, and packaging technologies on top of its 5nm node to make the chip high-performance and low-power, and the company credits the application of its 5nm node for the chip’s performance jump, which is almost equivalent to 20 times its original performance scale. Additionally, Samsung plans to start offering its 4nm node for automotive applications in the near future.

Samsung has set an ambitious goal to have non-mobile products account for over 50% of the revenue generated from its foundry business by 2027. Although the majority of the revenue of Samsung Foundry comes from contract-producing mobile application processors for smartphones designed by Samsung and Qualcomm, the company has been growing significantly during the pandemic from the chip shortage, culminating in its highest annual revenue to date in 2022.

While the global economic downturn has caused demand for chips to drop, Samsung remains committed to its innovative technology and is determined to stay at the forefront of the semiconductor industry. With the collaboration between Samsung and Ambarella, we can expect to see more advanced technology being utilized in autonomous vehicles in the near future.

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Samsung has been trying to become a leader in the chipset market and seems to be slowly progressing towards that. With Huawei out of the market, at least for the time being, the South Korean company has an opportunity to make its mark and it seems to be doing that.

As per the latest report coming from Korea, Samsung and Tesla are joining hands to make chips using the 5nm manufacturing process for autonomous driving. With the ongoing expansion and increased adoption of electric vehicles and the shortage of chipsets in the market because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Korean giant saw the opportunity and has expanded its semiconductor business into automobiles.

The chipset is being reported to be in Research & Development (R&D) stage at the Samsung Foundry Division and it will be mounted on Tesla’s autonomous vehicles. As said, it is being made using a 5nm Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) process, which only a couple of companies can do — Samsung and TSMC.

Samsung is already a partner of Tesla for producing the company’s current self-driving chips for hardware 3.0 computer. But the chip currently being used is manufactured using a bit older 14nm technology.

The South Korean giant recently reorganized its organizational structure and relocated some manpower in the Advanced Driving Assistance System (ADAS) which is focusing on autonomous driving technology. If this new development of Samsung and Tesla works out, then Samsung could post a great threat to TSMC, which also entered into this sector last year with a 7nm chip.

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Taiwan’s TSMC is already moving towards the next-gen 3nm semiconductor chip production. Apart from Major players like Apple and other Chinese smartphone companies, it is also attracting giants like Intel. After witnessing record-high revenues in multiple instances, it has now posted the Fourth Quarter Positive revenue report.

According to TSMC’s official press release, it has garnered $12.68 billion as the Q4 2020 revenue. This is a whopping 22% YoY(Year-over-Year) jump from 2019. Last year, it posted a revenue of $12.14 billion in Q4 revenue. What is interesting here is that 20% of the 2020’s Q4 revenue is from 5-nm chipsets.

This is 12% up from the 8% contribution last year. Anyway, TSMC says that its other 7nm and 16nm accounts for 29% and 13% of Q4 2020 revenue respectively.  From this, it is clear that the company’s 5nm chipsets have yielded more revenue than expected.

EDITOR’S PICK: Samsung gambles with a $116 billion investment to catch up with TSMC by 2022

If you recall, TSMC began the year with a 35% revenue contribution from 7nm in Q4 2019 report. With the chipsets like 5nm Dimensity 1000+, Apple’s 5nm A14 Bionic(iPhone 12 series), and the latest Snapdragon 888 SoC, it has shifted over to 5nm. That said, this  Q4 revenue is also a 4.4% QoQ increase from Q3 2020.

Anyway, TSMC’s forecasts for 2021 looks even better. It has already filled up the gaps left by Huawei with MediaTek 5nm and now Apple for 3nm. In fact, the company’s first contract for 3nm chips is to Apple, and trial production is already underway.

Accordingly, TSMC also expects that its Q1 2021(First Quarter) revenue will be between $12.7-$13 billion. Let’s join together in wishing the Taiwanese semiconductor giant a successful 2021 outing.

UP NEXT: MediaTek becomes TSMC’s third-largest customer after boom in mobile chip sales

(via)

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Apple has introduced a new-generation M1 chip for its latest Mac computers built on a 5nm process. The chipset is the US tech giant’s first ARM-based chip and brings improved performance and better battery life to its personal computers.

The new chip was unveiled alongside the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks and the Mac mini desktop computer, all of which are powered by the powerful chipset. Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji disclosed during the event that the company’s goal in creating the chip was to achieve “industry-leading performance and features while relentlessly focusing on performance efficiency.”

The company seems to have achieved that goal as the new M1 chip onboard the Macbook Air aids the provision of a good battery life which is said to be capable of withstanding up to 15 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video. In terms of speed, the new processor is also touted to be three and a half times faster than the previous Intel-based model. The graphics speed also comes in five times faster, accoding to Apple.

In terms of specs, the new M1 chip has a staggering 16 billion transistors, which is significantly higher than the 11.8 billion used in the iPhone 12’s A14 Bionic. The CPU core is also increased from six to an eight-core arrangement in order to boost the performance. Additionally, the M1 has four high-performance cores for heavy-duty work, compared to two on the iPhone 12, and four high-efficiency cores for low-priority tasks.

Just like the chipsets on the iPhones and iPads, the Mac’s M1 chip features dedicated circuitry for graphics and artificial intelligence processing. These modules are linked with a unified memory architecture, eliminating the need for the PC to spend time copying data internally as it switches processing approaches. The memory chips, while separate from the brains of the operation, are housed within the same chip package alongside processor for better speed.

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Huawei today officially announced the Mate 40 series and alongside, the Hisilicon Kirin 9000 5G SoC which powers the new flagship models was also unveiled. Huawei equally unveiled the Kirin 9000E, both chipset built on TSMC’s 5nm architecture.

The Kirin 9000 Series is a 5G chip design with the capability to handle intensive computations and multi-tasking operations with ease. The chip is the most sophisticated 5nm 5G SoC available, delivering vastly improved performance and power efficiency over its predecessor. It takes over from the Kirin 990 5G built on a 7nm silicon.

The new processor is said to have more than 15.3 billion transistors, the first processor to break the 15 billion transistors mark. This makes it the densest and most full-featured 5G SoC to date. The powerful processor packs a three-level power efficiency architecture with cores running at clock frequencies of up to 3.13GHz. The CPU part has eight cores, including a 3.13GHz Cortex-A77 large core, three Cortex-A77 medium cores each clocked at 2.54GHz. The SoC also has four Cortex-A55 small cores clocked at 2.04GHz each. The base frequency of the chipset is slightly higher than that of the Snapdragon 865 Plus which is clocked at 3.1GHz. Thus, Kirin 9000 is currently the highest frequency mobile phone processor.

Also integrated into the SoC is a 24-core Mali-G78 GPU, as well as an innovative NPU featuring two big cores and one tiny core, taking on-device AI to a new level. The 24-core Mali-G78 GPU is touted to be the most powerful GPU ever seen on a Huawei device. This delivers advanced graphics performance and is complemented by an amazing audiovisual experience for immersive gaming. The architecture exceeds the Kirin 990’s Mali-G76 in that the number of cores is increased by half and the performance is upgraded by 60% over the Mali-G76.

In terms of 5G, the industry’s first four-network synergy technology can efficiently integrate Wi-Fi 2.4GHz, Wi-Fi 5Ghz, main card 5G, and secondary card 4G, bringing aggregated high network speed, stable low time under changing network conditions, network optimization or concurrent download.

On its part, the Kirin 9000E GPU cores drop to 22. In terms of CPU architecture, both Kirin 9000 and Kirin 9000E adopt 8-core designs, which are a 3.13GHz Cortex-A77 super core, three 2.54GHz Cortex-A77 large cores, and four 2.05GHz Cortex-A55 energy efficiency cores.

In terms of GPU, Kirin 9000E is a 22-core Mali-G78. In terms of NPU, Kirin 9000E has dual cores (large core and one small core). In other respects, the two chipsets seem to be the same, including the integration of Balong 5000 5G baseband, ISP 6.0, security module, etc. In addition, they are all manufactured with 5nm EUV process, support LPDDR5/4X memory and UFS flash memory, support HiFi sound quality, 4K HDR video, etc.

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Recently, Samsung confirmed that it has started mass-production of 5nm chips. At the time, it was believed that the company could have started producing orders from Qualcomm’s next chipset.

However, it looks like that isn’t the case and Samsung might have lost the order to TSMC if the new report coming from China is to be believed. The reason being cited in the report is problems in the development process.

We had recently reported that the Samsung Foundry is struggling with low yields of its 5nm EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) process. Now, it is being reported that Qualcomm could shift the original order of Snapdragon X60 modem and Snapdragon 875 SoC to TSMC.

It seems that instead of shifting all the orders back from Samsung to TSMC, Qualcomm will distribute the orders among these two companies. Samsung also has an order of Snapdragon 735 SoC on 5nm node and is reportedly working on Exynos 1000 SoC.

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TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipset manufacturer has already started mass-production of 5nm chips, starting with Apple‘s A14 chipset which will be powering the upcoming Apple iPhone 12 lineup.

The Taiwanese giant currently has a production capacity of 60,000 chips on a monthly basis on the 5nm process. But the company is looking to expand its capacity to reach around 80,000 to 90,000 units a month.

Samsung has ambitious plans for the future and aims to become the leading semiconductor company in the world by 2030. Apart from starting mass-production of 5nm chips, the company also announced that it has started working on the 4nm process.

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Samsung has been hard at work to catch up and compete with TSMC, the world’s leading chipset manufacturer. The company has been putting in efforts to boost its chipset production and has now started mass-producing 5nm chipset.

In a recent announcement regarding the company’s Q2 2020 performance, the South Korean giant confirmed that it has begun mass-production of 5nm chipsets. Further, the company revealed that it is also working on 4nm chipsets.

The development is in line with the company’s earlier announcement of starting mass production of 5nm chipset by the end of Q2 2020. The company reveals that it has also strengthened the foundation for expansion by starting investments in production lines in the Pyeongtaek complex.

For those who are unaware, the Pyeongtaek complex in South Korea is the new chipset production facility from Samsung which will be focusing on making 5nm chips. The company has planned to invest around KRW 10 trillion ($8.1 billion) in this facility.

The new facility is responsible for making AI-powered (artificial intelligence), high-end smartphones, and HPC (high-performing computing) chips. Samsung’s plan is to diversify applications into HPC and consumer products to improve profitability.

EDITOR’S PICK: Samsung announces plans for 6G technology; launch expected by the end of this decade

On the other hand, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has already started manufacturing 5nm chipsets for Apple. The chipset, Apple A14, will be powering the company’s upcoming iPhone 12 lineup.

The company will reportedly use Exynos 1000 SoC for the upcoming Galaxy S-series flagship smartphones, which will be manufactured using the 5nm process. Not only that, but Samsung has also reportedly bagged orders for mass production of Qualcomm Snapdragon 875G and Snapdragon 735G chipsets on 5nm node.

Samsung is among the very few smartphone companies to build its own chipsets. The South Korean giant has ambitious plans for the future and aims to become the leading semiconductor company in the world by 2030.

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Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 12 series later this year powered by 5nm A14 chipset manufactured by TSMC. Now, according to a new tip by Twitter user @L0vetodream, the Taiwanese chipmaker will ship 80 million units of A15 chips to Apple in 2020.

TSMC will prepare 80 million A14 chips for Apple, in this year.

— 有没有搞措 (@L0vetodream) July 3, 2020

The Americal tech giant is reported to make a radical move with its iPhone 12 lineup this year. First, these handsets will be the first-ever 5G-ready iPhones from the company. Secondly, they are expected to come without a bundled charger and EarPods.

Now, as per a new tip, TSMC will be manufacturing 80 million units of 5nm A14 chip for Apple this year. But this goes against a recent report, which suggested the Cupertino-based company to only ship 15-20 million units of iPhone 12 devices in 2020.

So why Apple ordered these many units of A14 chips if it is going to ship less than half of that amount of iPhone 12 series? Maybe because the company might use the same chip or say A14X for new iPad Pros and ARM Macs.

But that does not make sense either as the iPad Pro 2020 was only introduced a few months back. Further, how can the iPhone maker expect to ship a large number of the first-gen ARM (aka Apple Silicon) Macs?

Hence, we highly recommend you to consider this information with a large pinch of salt.

UP NEXT: Samsung reportedly planning to skip the 4nm process and head to 3nm

(Via)

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Last year, Huawei was faced with an enormous task of finding a replacement for Google Apps. Its solution was to develop Huawei Mobile Services and investing in its AppGallery app store. But next year, Huawei will face an even bigger challenge – chipsets. With TSMC barred from manufacturing chips for Huawei’s chip subsidiary – Hisilicon, the company will be forced to look for alternatives very soon.

According to an industry insider on Weibo, Huawei’s flagship smartphones in 2021 could be powered by a 5nm chip from a third party vendor. The insider didn’t expand on his comment but the most likely contender for Huawei’s chip supply should be none other than MediaTek.

This comment by the insider is a bit confusing especially if you have been reading reports about the 5nm Kirin 1000 or 1020 that’s all set to launch this year. But here, he’s talking about 5nm chips for Huawei’s 2021 flagships and not the upcoming Mate 40.

TSMC Can Still Supply Chips To Huawei Until September 2020

In May 2020, the Trump administration added a new rule which barred overseas companies from supplying components to Huawei if it was made using US technology. Given how US equipment plays an important role in manufacturing semiconductor chips, this technically bars TSMC, SMIC, and even Samsung from manufacturing chips for Huawei. However, the US has granted a grace period of 120-days before the rule takes into effect. So TSMC can continue supplying chips to Hisilicon until September 15, 2020.

There was also a recent report which said that Huawei has placed an urgent order with the TSMC for 5nm chips. This means Huawei’s upcoming Kirin 1000 or 1020 (name is yet to be confirmed) 5nm chipset can still be manufactured by TSMC and released on schedule.

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But What About Huawei’s 2021 flagships?

Unless the US government extends the grace period after September, TSMC, or for that matter even the Chinese SMIC cannot manufacture chips for Hisilicon. This would leave Huawei with very limited options. An alternative could be to procure 5nm chips from a third-party vendor so that Huawei’s flagships next year are competitive, even without its own Hisilicon chips.

Since Qualcomm is a US company, it’s not a viable alternative. This leaves either MediaTek or even Samsung as the potential vendor of next-generation 5nm chips for Huawei.

But it remains to be seen if Samsung or MediaTek can legally sell its own chips to Huawei that’s manufactured using US technology. There are reports which say TSMC and Samsung are looking at setting up production lines without US equipment but we haven’t heard anything concrete yet.

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UPDATE:

ZTE has clarified that while it will design the 5nm chips, it will still rely on its supply chain sources to produce and manufacture these chipsets.

Earlier today (17th June 2020), ZTE stated that it has achieved chip design and development capabilities. It already has the 7nm processors being mass produced, and being utilized in global 5G infrastructures, while it has also begun importing 5nm process technology as well.

Keep in mind, these chips are not 5G SoC (system on chip) but rather a core part for 5G equipment and infrastructure. Currently, the number of companies capable of developing chips built on 5nm processes aren’t high in China. Huawei is another example of this case, with its rumored Kirin 1020 chip being built on a 5nm process as well.

Editor’s Pick: Huawei delays the production of flagship smartphones due to recent US Sanctions

The new 5nm chip technology being imported will also bring ZTE to the latest standards in the semiconductor field. This also implies that the company would no longer have to rely on US based companies or suppliers. Furthermore, it also marks a notable shift in the semiconductor market as China is stepping up in the industry.

The breakthrough arrives by ZTE heavily investing in its research and development department in recent times, especially for its chip development. According to the company’s vice president, ZTE has spent over 12.1 billion Yuan (roughly 1.7 billion US Dollars). With the recent US sanctions cutting off chip supply from TSMC to Huawei, the Chinese smartphone vendor is looking for alternatives and heavily investing in local semiconductor firms as well. Thus, ZTE being a chip foundry may also be a reliable candidate in the near future.

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(Via)

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Samsung recently completed the post production for its upcoming 5nm chipset, Exynos 992. And now, reports from South Korea reveal that the mass production of the new 5G processor begins in August 2020 and will feature ARM’s latest Cortex-A78 cores and Mali G78 GPU.

The new cores and GPU technology is said to be more powerful and efficient than the previous generation’s Cortex-A77 cores and Mali-G77 GPU. ARM claimed that the new core generation will be 20 percent more energy efficient than its predecessors with a 25 percent bump in GPU performance as well. Unlike the Exynos 990, the Exynos 992 SoC is said to bring major upgrades over just minor improvements.

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A notable improvement is the shift to the new 5nm fabrication process, which will be the company’s first. In comparison, Qualcomm’s current flagship mobile processor, the Snapdragon 865, uses a custom version of the ARM Cortex-A77 cores and Cortex-A55 for low power tasks. So we can expect the Exynos 992 SoC to rival the Snapdragon 865 Plus, which may launch later this year.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 series may be the first handset to feature the Exynos 992 processor. In a financial report, the South Korean tech giant confirmed the launch of upcoming smartphones including the Galaxy Note 20. Although, the official announcement is still a while away, so stay tuned more updates.

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(Via,Source)

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After Huawei had its chip supply from TSMC cut off, the Chinese company had started looking into multiple alternatives. One such alternative was the known chipmaker MediaTek, which would supply the smartphone maker with 5G chips. But it seems the deal isn’t exactly set in stone as MediaTek has yet to promise chip supply to Huawei.

According to a new report, MediaTek hasn’t confirmed the increased chip supply order, keeping the current situation in mind. In view of the recent sanctions by the US Government and the related human resource investment the chipmaker would have to make for Huawei, it seems that the deal has not been confirmed. At the moment, MediaTek has declined to comment on this situation or the rumors.

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A few sources close to the industry also pointed out that Huawei had already received 5G base stations and mobile processor 5nm chips from TSMC, even before the US sanctions had been proposed. In other words, the Chinese tech giant has a sufficient stock for now, which should also aid in development for the next two years. Thus, the short term business opportunities for others in the mobile chip business, like MediaTek, is relatively low.

Furthermore, the recent policies being enforced by the US may also hinder the supply of chip giants like Qualcomm and MediaTek, both of which are known suppliers of 5G enabled mobile processors. Notably, another major concern the industry faces is that while the new regulations do not impact the chipmakers directly, they may soon hinder their 5G operations if they function against the best interest of the US government.

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(Via)

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Ever since the Huawei US ban has been extended, the company is in the news every day with new developments. One of the latest reports suggests the supplies for 5nm chips by TSMC remain unaffected as the orders were placed before the new sanction.

Huawei’s upcoming high-end smartphones, possibly called Mate 40 series is rumored to be powered by a 5nm chipset. The chip in question has been long thought to be called Kirin 1020 but a new rumor from earlier today suggests it will be known as Kirin 1000, following the name of its predecessor Kirin 990.

Having said that, this 5nm chipset is being manufactured by TSMC, which is the only company to have the tech for mass production. The Taiwanese chipmaker is also making Apple’s A14 5nm chipset slated to debut on iPhone 12 series.

But when TSMC was asked to drop business with Huawei by the US government, news started emerging that the upcoming Mate 40 series will be affected due to lack of 5nm Kirin 1020 (or 1000). However, a new report says otherwise.

The sanction by the US is only applicable for future orders from September. Since the orders for the 5nm chips were placed earlier, TSMC will supply it to Huawei as planned before the sanction goes live.

Earlier reports suggested Huawei placed orders for 5nm and 7nm chips. However, this latest one says they were actually for 5nm mobile chip for Mate 40 series and 12nm chips for 5G bases stations. That is because TSMC’s 7nm production line is currently at 100%, whereas their 5nm line is said to be only at 50%.

This means Huawei currently has no one to manufacture its 7nm Kirin 980 and Kirin 990 chipsets. This could be the reason why the company has increased its orders for MediaTek chips by a whopping 300%.

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(Via)

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The Director and President of ZTE, Xi Ziyang, has recently stated in an interview that the company is working on developing 5nm chipsets. And with the current technological processes, it is expected that the power consumption and weight of 5G smartphones will continue to decline by a rate of 20 percent every year.

Although the 5nm chipsets were discussed in the interview, the senior executive has yet to divulge finer details regarding the chips that are being developed. From what we do know so far, it can be said that the processor is not 5G SoC (System on Chip) but rather a core part for 5G equipment and infrastructure. Currently, companies that are capable of providing 5nm chips are not common in China.

However, a notable example of companies that are capable of this includes Huawei with its proprietary Kirin 1020 processors. Similarly, another company that will also utilize the 5nm chips manufactured from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) later this year is Apple with the A14 processor.

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ZTE is known to be a major player in the three of its signature fields, which are chips, patents, and software. With the new information, it seems the company is placing importance on the next generation of chipsets. According to the President, the company has already designed dedicated chips for communications, which was designed independently from the ground up and manufactured by partners. Meaning, its research, and development department have moved over to 5nm processes after mastering the previously popular 10nm and 7nm processes.

As of right now, China is one of only two countries through which both 7nm and 5nm chipsets are imported. The country has developed and produced more than 100 types of chips and is now mass producing 7nm processes whilst also developing and commercializing the 5nm processes as well. Thus, it is an impressive feat by ZTE, which has already developed such chips.

UP NEXT: Samsung shuts production facility in South Korea till February 25 following Coronavirus outbreak

(Via)

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Samsung last week held its annual Foundry Forum in the U.S where the company among other things, unveiled its roadmap that takes its chip manufacturing process technology to 7nm Low Power Plus, 5nm Low Power Early and 3nm Gate-All-Around Early/Plus.

According to the details revealed, Samsung will first use an EUV lithography solution on the 7nm LPP process and that should be ready for production during the second half of this year. However, mass production of parts using the new process will start in the first half of 2019. This is the same timeline for Samsung’s rival TSMC to start mass production of parts using its 7nm+ node which will also use the EUV lithography. TSMC will also start risk production of its 5nm node in the first half of 2019. Samsung is expected to produce the next-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform which will be powering next year’s Samsung Galaxy S10 using the 7nm process.

Samsung will also commence production of chips based on its 5nm LPE that will provide ultra-low power consumption in 2019. In addition, the 4nm chips will join the fray in 2020. This will be the last of the chips to employ FinFET process and it will be produced using the 4nm Low Power Early/Plus process. Chips built with this process technology will feature improved performance and a smaller cell size.

Read Also: Snapdragon 845-Powered Windows 10 on ARM PCs Coming Soon, To Offer Up To 50% Increase in Performance

The 3nm node will herald an entirely new manufacturing process technology. Samsung will use its own next-generation GAA (Gate all-around) architecture MBCFET (multi-bridge-channel FET). 3nm production is not expected to begin until 2022. Keep in mind that the smaller the node size, chips that are produced using the process are more powerful and energy efficient.
(source)

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