Samsung hopes to start mass-producing 2nm wafers for mobile devices by 2025. The starting gun for the race against TSMC has been fired.

The South Korean tech giant shared the chip division’s future plans during the Foundry Forum held in the American city of San Jose. Samsung started producing 3nm wafers in June 2022 and now wants to crack another nanometer there. Mass production of 2 nm wafers is scheduled to start in the course of 2025: initially for mobile devices, one year later also for the HPC market.

Samsung did not choose the deadline of 2025 by chance. The Taiwanese TSMC had already announced in April that it would start producing 2nm wafers in the same year. Samsung had started manufacturing 3nm wafers a few months earlier and is set to overtake TSMC again for the next generation.

Smaller but finer

The rule of thumb is: The smaller the wafer, the better and, above all, the more economical the chips work. Samsung itself claims that 2nm wafers can deliver up to 12 percent more performance and consume up to 25 percent less power, all on a surface five percent smaller than the current 3nm process.

Intel does not calculate in nanometers, but has planned a similar baking process with 20A. Intel hopes to start production before 2025, although the chipmaker’s deadlines aren’t always reliable.

It gets even better: Samsung announced during the conference that it is researching a 1.4nm process. Mass production of this type of wafer could start in 2027.