Samsung Electronics has added another cutting-edge node to its extreme ultraviolet (EUV)-based process offerings to continue its leadership in the advanced foundry market and is ready to take orders for chips from 5-nanometer (nm) FinFET process.

The South Korean semiconductor and IT giant said on Tuesday it successfully completed the new process technology that can reduce the logic area and lower power consumption compared to the previous process.

Compared to 7nm, the new 5nm FinFET process technology provides up to a 25 percent increase in logic area efficiency with 20 percent lower power consumption or 10 percent higher performance as a result of process improvement to enable it to have more innovative standard cell architecture, the company said in a statement.

“Another key benefit of 5nm is that we can reuse all the 7nm intellectual property (IP) to 5nm. Thereby 7nm customers’ transitioning to 5nm will greatly benefit from reduced migration costs,” it added.

Samsung also announced the readiness of its initial production of 7nm process, its first process node with EUV lithography technology. Chips will be rolled out under this process this month. Also, Samsung is collaborating with customers on 6nm, a customized EUV-based process node, and has already received the product tape-out of its first 6nm chip.

Samsung’s new advanced processing technology and its commitment to grow its foundry business is expected to be greatly helpful to the system semiconductor ecosystem in Korea. Samsung foundry’s EUV-based process technologies are currently being manufactured at the S3-line in Hwaseong, Korea.

By Yong Hwan-jin and Minu Kim

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]