A foundry’s yield is the percentage of usable chips that are diced from a silicon wafer. Typically, a 70% yield is good enough for mass production. In 2nm test runs, TSMC has had a 60% yield. Still, the rumor mill says that Nvidia and Qualcomm are considering switching to Samsung Foundry from TSMC. High costs and limited capacity are two reasons given for this possible move.
TSMC is supposedly hiking prices for advanced chips by 5% to 10% this year. In addition, the foundry is supposedly raising the cost of silicon wafers for 2nm by 50% to $30,000. These higher prices could lead some TSMC clients to switch to Samsung Foundry. On the other hand, using a foundry with low yields like means that it will take more silicon wafers to build the number of chips needed and that could also jack up the cost to Samsung foundry clients significantly.
South Korea’s Chosun Daily says that attracting new 2nm business might be Samsung Foundry’s last chance to continue operations. The foundry is running multi-billion dollar losses, is way behind TSMC in market share, and Samsung might be looking to stem the ocean-sized flow of red ink.
