Digitimes: Samsung's 14nm and above processes are flooding into mainland chip customers

According to Digitimes, industry insiders said that Samsung has received a flood of large orders for processes above 14 nanometers in recent months, and many of the new customers are chip manufacturers in mainland China, driving the quarterly growth of capacity utilization.

According to analysis, this is mainly because the cooperative relationship between Samsung and mainland China's semiconductor industry has rapidly heated up in recent years due to the conflicts between China and the United States and Japan and South Korea. In addition, mainland China has accelerated the development of independent chips and the market scale has continued to expand, and has listed Samsung as an ally to de-Americanize. Orders have poured into Samsung, making its order performance above 14 nanometers exceed expectations.

Digitimes pointed out that whether this will have an impact on TSMC and UMC's mainland business remains to be seen, but it is foreseeable that Samsung's 14nm and above processes are supported by huge orders from mainland customers, making up for the low profits of advanced processes below 7nm.

In addition, it is understood that as mainland chip customers expand their orders for Samsung's 14nm and above process, companies such as Faraday and M31, which have a good cooperative relationship with Samsung, have unexpectedly benefited. The proportion of mainland Chinese customers will also increase significantly in 2021.

Although there is still a certain gap between Samsung's current advanced process technology and TSMC, people in the semiconductor industry said that Samsung's cooperation with the mainland has been deepening due to the Sino-US trade war and the Japan-South Korea conflict in recent years, which is also very critical to the competition in wafer foundry.

It is understood that TSMC has always been favored by many manufacturers in mainland China, but its quotation is more expensive than that of Samsung. In addition, as the mainland's de-Americanization is intensifying, TSMC is in an awkward situation. Therefore, mainland chip manufacturers have begun to turn to cooperation with Samsung. For example, in addition to cooperating with TSMC, Baidu also placed an order for its first AI chip "Kunlun" using Samsung's 14nm process.

On the other hand, Samsung has also fully cooperated with mainland mobile phone brands and will supply its Exynos series mobile phone chips to vivo, Xiaomi, OPPO and others. At the same time, it can also help increase Samsung's own mobile phone chip shipments and foundry capacity utilization, which may further erode the market share of MediaTek and Qualcomm, and affect TSMC's orders.

People in the semiconductor industry pointed out that, based on current observations, there is still a big gap between Samsung's advanced process and TSMC, but below 3 nanometers, TSMC's research and development pace will inevitably slow down. Samsung, which has the support of national resources and strong group power, still has time to catch up quickly, and it is not impossible to overtake TSMC.

The warming cooperation between Samsung and mainland China is worth noting. Due to the rapid growth of mainland China's chip market, it is expected to help Samsung grow. Compared with TSMC, which has more concerns, Samsung has a higher degree of freedom in accepting orders.