Samsung laid out a roadmap for its chip production plans and said it will begin making chips with a 2-nanometer process in 2025 and a 1.4-nanometer process in 2027. Samsung began producing 3-nanometer chips earlier this year.

TSMC expects to begin 3nm chip production this year with production of 2nm set to begin in 2025. However, the company has not announced plans to mass-produce 1.4nm chips.

Daiwa Capital Markets analyst SK Kim said this is the first time that SEC (Samsung Electronics) guides for its long-term foundry roadmap and is more aggressive than TSMC and market expectations.

Intel CEO Pat [kicking] Gelsinger reiterated that goal and said the company plans to start fabricating 18A chips by 2025. Gelsinger said, “We're 2.5 years into the transformation. Now, it's gone the way I would have expected at the time in terms of rebuilding the company. You must be much less sceptical about our ability to pull this off.”

Intel wants to overtake Samsung Foundry and TSMC with 1.8nm semiconductor chips

Intel already uses its Intel 7 (7nm equivalent to Samsung Foundry and TSMC) process to make Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, and Sapphire Rapids chips. The company said it is ready to start the mass production of chips using its Intel 4 (4nm equivalent) process node, and it will be used to make Intel's Meteor Lake chips and some custom ASIC chips. By the end of this year, Intel's 3nm process will be ready to manufacture Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest data centre chips.

In the first half of 2024, Intel plans to keep the Intel 20A (2nm equivalent to Samsung Foundry and TSMC) ready to make 2nm chips. Intel's Arrow Lake chips will use this Intel 20A process. In the second half of 2024, the company plans to keep its Intel 18A (1.8nm) semiconductor chip manufacturing process ready, and that process could be used by some firms in 2025. In fact, during the Deutsche Bank conference last week, Pat Gelsinger claimed that the company had already received a large prepayment from a company for 1.8nm chips.