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High volume Android smartphone chips reject Samsung and TSMC latest nodes

B

benb

Well-known member
In January 2024 Samsung announced the Exynos 2400 would be on an improved (and improvised) 4nm process, 4LPP+, instead of the leading node, 3GAA.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is on TSMC N4, same as Gen 2, rather than one of the leading N3 flavors of Samsung or TSMC.

TSMC announced several versions of N3. The most viable is N3E with no EUV double patterning. However, SRAM on N3E is the same size as N5. SRAM makes up the majority of a mobile chip. So with no incentive to move to N3E, Qualcomm stood still, at N4.

TSMC plans N3P and N3X to improve on N3E. But these may involve the dreaded EUV double patterning and thus be uneconomic.

Intel announced volume manufacturing of Intel’s first EUV-based node, Intel 4, in Ireland, in September 2023. Intel Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) using Intel 4 was announced December 2023. The actual production chips have yet to arrive to market in February 2024.

In contrast, Samsung and TSMC 4nm smartphone chips have arrived. Benchmarks.ul.com have Exynos 2400 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 benchmarks, PCMark for Android. Samsung Galaxy S24+ has both Exynos and SD versions, and in Work 3.0, the SD has 18052 and Exynos scores 17726 (-1.8% less performance). The SD has longer battery life.

Best Smartphones and Tablets - February 2024 (ul.com)

With both TSMC and Samsung latest-and-greatest nodes unsuitable for smartphones selling in the $1000 price range, can Intel chiplets, backside power delivery, advanced packaging, and most of all advanced nodes (Intel 3 and 18A) keep Moore’s Law alive?
 
Also mediatek said their next gen is N3 (don’t think they specified which flavor) so that is at least one android customer. As for N3E sonce it only went into volume production at the end of the year, it is impossible for final phones to be released with them already. Maybe around early summer sounds more reasonable for phones being on store shelves if people are moving fast.
 
benb said:
With both TSMC and Samsung latest-and-greatest nodes unsuitable for smartphones selling in the $1000 price range, can Intel chiplets, backside power delivery, advanced packaging, and most of all advanced nodes (Intel 3 and 18A) keep Moore’s Law alive?
Click to expand...

That's an absolutely sensible decision. Back in the 200X, nobody, but desktop CPUs ever went leading edge.

90% of the market was waiting 1 year for a new node to cheapen up, or for its refined, cheapened half-node upgrade. And ASICs would even go for something even older than 1-2 nodes.

Smartphones don't lose the market for the lack of a 15% performance benefit. They just need to be not that far behind that the competition.

I myself have long dropped out of buying flagship phone models. Instead, I buy a new average phone every 2 years, and am very happy. Most people outside Western counties follow the same pattern.
 
The same can be said about buying a laptop today. Even 2-3 years old CPU models are still on the market, and are generally quite OK, if you go for AMD.

2 year old Ryzen 6000 notebooks are just 15%-20% behind the newest generation, but are coming with good deals as old inventory is dumped. I seen a 2 years old flagship model listed for 1/3 of its original listed price at the new year sale.
 
One thing that is interesting is how comparable Samsung 4 and TSMC 4 are at this stage of development. 1.8% difference in one respectable benchmark.

I think a lot of what gets debated here on Semiwiki comes down to small differences in maturity. Samsung is generally less mature at release than TSMC (something Samsung really, really needs to address; customers can't be your quality control). But this year, using more mature nodes at release, both Exynos and SD flagship chips run cool, have pretty great battery life, and possibly don't matter to anyone (not to me, not to Paul it sounds like).

No more cutthroat competition with smartphone chips? What is the world coming too!
 
Paul2 said:
That's an absolutely sensible decision. Back in the 200X, nobody, but desktop CPUs ever went leading edge.

90% of the market was waiting 1 year for a new node to cheapen up, or for its refined, cheapened half-node upgrade. And ASICs would even go for something even older than 1-2 nodes.

Smartphones don't lose the market for the lack of a 15% performance benefit. They just need to be not that far behind that the competition.

I myself have long dropped out of buying flagship phone models. Instead, I buy a new average phone every 2 years, and am very happy. Most people outside Western counties follow the same pattern.
Click to expand...

You mean people outside of East Asia?

New phone releases out this way are crazy!

When I go to UK/Europe I am amazed to see how many folk still using old phones.

I am using 4yr old Samsung and it works great still for me , with good battery usage and charge speed
 
benb said:
TSMC announced several versions of N3. The most viable is N3E with no EUV double patterning. However, SRAM on N3E is the same size as N5. SRAM makes up the majority of a mobile chip. So with no incentive to move to N3E, Qualcomm stood still, at N4.

TSMC plans N3P and N3X to improve on N3E. But these may involve the dreaded EUV double patterning and thus be uneconomic.
Click to expand...
N3E has 23 minimum pitch which cannot be a single exposure approach. On the other hand, some layers were relaxed to ~50 nm pitch, which could use this approach.
 
Barnsley said:
You mean people outside of East Asia?

New phone releases out this way are crazy!

When I go to UK/Europe I am amazed to see how many folk still using old phones.
Click to expand...


Yes, regardless of how much you have money, that's just awkward to put an extra $1k for a functional analogue of something 10-5 times cheaper, and often more convenient.

No awkward hole in the screen, replaceable battery, often rugged design without glass on every side, and of course no weird flexible screen which inevitably breaks within 1 year. You don't have to put it into a phone case immediately after purchase. It can do native 3g video calls to people with featurephone

I am a busy many, and I lose money if I spend time fixing my phone instead of working


Seeing how many people still find that suprising, I think people high up in big MNCs don't know much about consumer behaviour because they don't look further than expensive marketting studies they comission.

Their problem is that a decision based on $100000 marketing study can be sold to directors, but a decision based on common sense, and asking few salarymen around cannot.
 
Paul2 said:
The same can be said about buying a laptop today. Even 2-3 years old CPU models are still on the market, and are generally quite OK, if you go for AMD.

2 year old Ryzen 6000 notebooks are just 15%-20% behind the newest generation, but are coming with good deals as old inventory is dumped. I seen a 2 years old flagship model listed for 1/3 of its original listed price at the new year sale.
Click to expand...
in 2024 the vast majority (80%+) of Intel CPUs sold will be 7nm or older.
 
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