For a Japanese developer of computing accelerators.
Formally, Samsung was six months ahead of TSMC in terms of mastering the mass production of 3nm chips, but still did not receive a significant share of the contract services market. Business Korea, citing foreign media, reports that Samsung Electronics has already managed to receive an order for the contract production of 2nm chips from the Japanese developer Preferred Networks, which should form the basis of computing accelerators for artificial intelligence systems.
Image Source: Samsung Electronics
Founded in 2014, Preferred Networks has the backing of Toyota, NTT and Fanuc. Samsung’s choice as a contract manufacturer of 2nm chips is believed to have been due to the Korean company’s own production of related HBM memory chips, as well as experience in packaging heterogeneous semiconductor components. Third-party analysts suggest that Samsung was able to bypass TSMC in this area mainly due to having access to in-house-produced memory and due to a lower workload of orders. The technological superiority of Samsung, even if it existed, did not in any way influence the choice of this company by the developer in this case.