Samsung Foundry Fab Roadmap

At the recent Samsung Foundry Forum, GH Choi presented Manufacturing Excellence: The Best Gift Ever. He is the Head of Manufacturing Technology Center at Samsung Foundry. His presentation took a look at the fab construction roadmap.

As he opened his presentation:

My presentation will focus on introducing Samsung Foundry's manufacturing leadership and upcoming expansion for our fabrication facilities.

Manufacturing Excellence

The three capabilities that go into manufacturing excellence are:

• Production capacity
• Excellent technology
• Partnerships within Samsung (especially for EUV)

Since Samsung Foundry began in 2017, they have been expanding their production capacity by up to 80% (see the graph, which goes up to 2026). This year they plan to triple their capacity by investing in new facilities: S5 phase 1, S5 phase 2, and the new site in the US. They plan to increase the portion of capacity for nodes below 5nm to 35% by 2026 (meaning that 35% of installed capacity will be being used for 5nm or below in 2026). 8" wafer capacity has grown by 1.5 times since 2017 and will continue to expand.

Expertise in tool-to-tool matching allows Samsung Foundry to move processes between fabs. For example, they transferred 14nm from Hiheung (S1) to Austin (S2) with rapid improvement in D0. In fact, the improvement was so effective that the D0 for Austin (the receiving fab) ended up lower than Giheung (the donor fab). Austin does not run EUV so does not run 5nm. They then repeated this for 5nm, transferring from Hwaseong (S3) to Pyeongtaek (S5). And setting up the S5 line took half the time of the S3 line while maintaining quality. In the first quarter, they can ramp up the production volume by 10 times without affecting the defect rate.

Samsung has been implementing EUV for many years. GH said that Samsung has 24% of all the EUV machines installed globally. They have been working with another global technology leader conducting research and development to maximize EUV performance. That is Samsung Memory, which has a 30-year proven track record in high-volume manufacturing of DRAM and Nand. The goal is to combine Samsung Memory's expertise in high-volume manufacturing with  Samsung Foundry's logic technology. 

Samsung is the first in the world to implement EUV process technology and we are a leader in this field. Samsung Foundry has also been gradually improving the productivity of our EUV facilities. From 3rd quarter of 2019 to this year, the number of EUV steppers installed has increased by 3 times, leading to a four-fold increase in productivity. 25% of wafers at 5nm or below are currently done with EUV process.

Managing mask lifetimes is one of the key issues in EUV technology. Based on their expertise in cleaning and overall management of the manufacturing process, Samsung Foundry opted to use semi-permanent masks in their EUV technology. The mask is not damaged and discarded after several rounds of cleaning. By applying optimization methods and upgrades such as a modular vessel for the process, Samsung Foundry can prolong the cleaning cycle of the masks while minimizing defects.

Another issue, as you may know, if you've been reading my posts on EUV (for example, Imec on EUV. Are We There Yet?) developing a pellicle with high transmissivity is important. Samsung Foundry has developed one with 82% transmissivity. They plan to push that to 88% this year. I don't know if this transmissivity number is for the light passing once through the pellicle or twice. Since EUV masks are reflective, the light path has to pass through the pellicle twice.

Sites

Samsung Foundry has 5 fabs (4 in Korea and one in Austin TX). The Pyeongtaek fab is being expanded to increase production capacity and another campus will be built in the US (location still not announced). The three production fabs in Korea are all located close to Seoul (and Hwaseong and Giheung are just 2 miles apart). Hwaseong is 12 miles away from Pyeongtaek. They are so closely located that they work almost like one fab and can control capacity according to demand. I would draw a map but they are all so close that unless you have detailed knowledge of the geography of South Korea, they just all appear to be in Seoul. And I expect you already know where Austin TX is.

• Giheung fab is focused on producing specialty and legacy products, as well as 8" wafers.
• Hwaseong fab specializes in CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) and advanced chips with 5nm technology
• Pyeongtaek site is also a production facility for products at or below 5nm
• Austin plant is currently producing legacy nodes (Samsung has been operating the Austin site for 25 years since 1996)
• There are plans to expand with a new campus in the US

With the new facility, production capacity in 2026 will be 1.7 times higher than this year.

Samsung runs two systems to facilitate manufacturing operations, especially in the US. One is a system to ensure real-time synchronization between all the fabs. All the sites can share manufacturing data easily. The second system is a staff management system to ensure effective operations and knowledge exchange between different sites, including sending staff from Korea to Austin and vice-versa.

Between 2014 and 2020 we successfully tripled our overseas capacity [i.e. fab S2 in Austin] while maintaining quality at the D0 level

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