[News] Samsung Reportedly Nears Securing Major 2nm Orders from NVIDIA, Qualcomm as Yields Improve

With 2nm becoming the next battleground for chipmakers, Samsung is racing—like Intel—to close the gap with TSMC by landing major external orders. Now, it may be just one step away: according to Chosun Biz, Samsung Foundry has entered the final phase of 2nm performance testing with NVIDIA GPUs and Qualcomm APs.

Chosun Biz suggests that Samsung’s hard-won experience with its first GAA-based node, 3nm, is now paying off—3nm yields have reportedly topped 60%, and 2nm yields have climbed past 40%.

According to Sedaily, the Qualcomm AP in question could be the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. If all goes as planned, TSMC will produce it on 3nm in the second half of 2025—while Samsung is aiming to leapfrog with its 2nm version, expected to debut in Galaxy phones by the second half of 2026.

If successful, this would be Samsung’s first Qualcomm smartphone AP order in three years—showing that the company isn’t relying solely on its in-house Exynos 2600 to fill its 2nm production lines, Sedaily notes.

Details on Samsung’s progress with NVIDIA remain limited, but Chosun Biz reports that both NVIDIA and Qualcomm are working with TSMC on 2nm while also preparing for potential production with Samsung as part of a diversification strategy. The U.S. AI chip giant is reportedly considering Samsung for its next-gen GPU manufacturing.

However, Wccftech also points out that Samsung’s 2nm process still trails TSMC, which has already developed its node with reported yields nearing 80%. With TSMC set to begin 2nm volume production by the end of 2025, Samsung faces mounting pressure to significantly boost its yield rates by the second half of this year, the report adds.

Read more

• [News] Samsung Reportedly Nears 2nm Win with First Qualcomm Phone AP Deal in 3 Years
• [News] Samsung Rumored to Mull on Scrapping 1.4nm Node to Prioritize 2nm/3nm Yield Gains

(Photo credit: Samsung)