Samsung has partnered with US-based Silicon Frontline Technology to improve the yield of its semiconductor chips during production in order to catch up with TSMC on the 3nm process, citing Korean media Naver.
According to the report, Samsung Electronics advanced process yields are very low, since the 5nm process has yield problems, and the situation becomes worse in the 4nm and 3nm process. Samsung’s 3nm solution process is rumored to have a yield of no more than 20% since mass production, and the mass production progress is bottlenecked.
Samsung is currently experiencing yield-related issues at the 4nm and 5nm process nodes, and the company does not want this issue to arise again for the 3nm process. So it hopes to help Samsung fabs with front-end processes and chip performance improvements by working with Silicon Frontline Technology.
The U.S. company provides chip qualification assessment and ESD (electrostatic discharge) prevention technology. ESD is one of the main causes of semiconductor chip defects, caused by friction between equipment and metal during the manufacturing process. Samsung has reportedly been working with Silicon Frontline for a long time during the chip design and production process, with satisfactory results. The company will now use the company’s technology in the chip verification process.
