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Samsung is already making 3nm chips, beating out competitors
- A Samsung 3nm manufacturing process for chips is rolling out.
- This means Samsung is the first to use this new process, beating out competitor TSMC.
- Samsung claims these new chips could be up to 45% more power-efficient than 5nm chips.
The race is on for manufacturers to create faster, less power-hungry, and more thermally efficient chips. The next big step in this process is three nanometers, which is the next die-shrink.
Although we thought we’d see Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) land first at this milestone, it looks like the Samsung 3nm process is the first. Per a Bloomberg report (via 9to5Google), Samsung has officially started production of these new chips.
Related: The best Samsung phones you can get
This is an interesting development, considering we heard a rumor that Samsung was woefully behind on its 3nm manufacturing. Apparently, that rumor was incorrect.
According to Samsung, its 3nm chips could offer up to 45% better power efficiency when compared to 5nm chips. For the record, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and the Exynos 2100 are 5nm chips. Unfortunately, Samsung did not give us a comparison to 4nm chips such as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
Elsewhere, Samsung claims 3nm chips could improve performance by 23%, once again in comparison to 5nm builds.
Samsung’s first batches of these chips will go out to specialized systems. Eventually, they’ll make their way to more common systems — such as smartphones.