For the uninitiated, yield is a measure of efficiency in chip production. It is measured in percent and shows the number of usable chips produced out of per 100 manufactured. The report yesterday suggested Samsung Foundry’s yield for Qualcomm’s 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 was just 35 percent. Meaning, only 35 chips out of 100 manufactured meet the required quality standards. That’s too low and effectively results in supply shortages. As such, Qualcomm has decided to turn to TSMC for the production of its next-gen 3nm chips. Samsung‘s own Exynos 2200 is said to have even lower yields. The company was already investigating the cause of such poor results. But it has now expanded the scope of that investigation to determine whether there has been a foul play here. According to an Infostock Daily report, the Korean firm has a strong belief that executives at Samsung Foundry may have done something wrong, causing it a huge loss of business. Now, that’s a strange turn Samsung’s chip unit has taken. We will be keeping a close eye on this development and will keep you posted as and when we have more information.
Samsung’s chip woes continue to compound
Samsung has been long playing second fiddle to Taiwanese giant TSMC in the contract chip manufacturing market. The latter consistently manages to win contracts from most big companies around the world. The Korean behemoth is trying hard to catch up to it but has suffered multiple setbacks. For the past few years, major chipmakers tried to avoid Samsung because its manufacturing nodes were believed to be inferior to that of TSMC’s in terms of power consumption, thermal management, and overall performance. Samsung seems to have got things a lot right in recent years. Its 4nm chips are as good as those made by TSMC. But unfortunately, the company’s chip division has now been hit with another huge blow. Whether or not there has been a fraud here, losing a contract from Qualcomm is a great loss of business to Samsung. More so because the American chip giant will now move to its arch-rival TSMC. That also means the reported poor yields are real. Samsung’s chip woes are incurable, it seems.
