Samsung Reportedly Aims to Overtake TSMC’s Foundry Business by 2030

After TSMC announced that it would increase its investment for 2022 to stay on top of the foundry business, it has been reported that Samsung aims to overtake its rival in the semiconductor business. Unfortunately, it may take almost a decade for the Korean giant to realize its goal.

Samsung’s Foundry Business Apparently Serves Over 100 Customers, One of Them Happens to Be Qualcomm

A report from DigiTimes states that based on the current situation, 2022 is expected to see increased demand for chips. Samsung, who is already said to mass produce 4nm chips for the likes of Qualcomm, aims to get the better of its rival in the coming years.

“Samsung Electronics recently announced its wafer foundry now serves over 100 customers. Based on current conditions, the wafer foundry market in 2022 looks to be just as hot as it was in 2021. As a result, the South Korean industry is optimistic about Samsung's wafer foundry, which is about to enter a full-scale growth stage. However, Samsung is still relatively new to the automotive and AI chip fields.”

Samsung’s efforts are not just limited to its home turf in South Korea but have extended to the U.S. too. In 2021, the company officially announced its $17 billion semiconductor manufacturing plant in Texas, and that is not the only ambition the chip manufacturing giant has laid out. Back in 2019, we reported that Samsung aims to invest $115 billion by 2030 to gain an edge in the mobile chips category and take on not just Qualcomm, but Apple too.

The company also announced that it has plans on mass producing 3nm chips in the first half of 2022. These 3nm chips will offer a 35 percent performance jump and 50 percent power savings compared to its 7nm LPP nodes, but it is not confirmed how it will fare against TSMC’s own 3nm offerings. The efforts to triple chip production will also be beneficial to sate the chip shortage, which has forced TSMC to not just introduce price hikes for its next-generation wafers but also to start prioritizing partners who are not stockpiling chips.

Unfortunately, the journey is hardly a smooth one, as right now, Qualcomm is reportedly looking to give Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 orders to TSMC due to low 4nm yields from Samsung’s side. 2030 is still a long way off, and we will continue to revisit the company’s progress after every few months, so stay tuned.