Samsung Foundry’s global leadership team discuss several key initiatives, including 10nm and 7nm manufacturing processes. Jong Shik Yoon, Executive Vice President, Samsung Foundry Business, said that the company has made excellent progress in its production ramp activities and expects to be in mass production by end this year. 14nm ramp continues with additional design wins both for Samsung's existing customers as well as for new customers in various market segments. Samsung is also expanding its collaboration with foundry design ecosystem partners in the areas of EDA, IP, design services and ASIC services.

In the leading edge technology space, the number of foundry players is decreasing dramatically. Yoon disclosed that Samsung used to see more than 20 companies with fabs back in 130nm days, and now at the 16/14nm node only with 4 major players have been left. With the continuous escalation of both process development as well as fab investment costs, this trend of reduced players is expected to continue as we migrate down past 14nm. Yoon said that Samsung Foundry is well-positioned to be one of the remaining foundry players.

Ben Suh, Senior Vice President, Foundry Marketing, said that Samsung has shipped more than half a million wafers for its 14nm FinFET since its introduction with "an excellent defect density of sub-0.2 defect/cm2 (Poisson)."

Samsung announced key updates below to its process technology roadmap:

• 28nm: addition of RF and eNVM technology to our 28FDS baseline. RF will be available this year and eNVM will be rolled out in phases in 2017 and 2018
• 14nm: 3rd generation 14LPC offering which provides a lower cost option, without design rule changes or performance sacrifice. To enable connectivity features, Samsung is also introducing RF add-on to 14LPC this year. The company has also expanded solutions on its 14nm FinFET to cover product applications in the Networking/Server and Automotive segments
• 10nm: 2nd generation 10nm with higher performance over 10LPE will be introduced this year. Samsung calls this 10LPP. 10LPP will come with 10% speed boost, maintaining design results with 10LPE
• 7nm: Samsung has have already begun work on its cost optimized 7LPP node which comes with very competitive PPA scaling.
• 8" matured node: keeping in mind there are still ample of new designs and applications that can take advantage of 8in technology, Samsung is opening up its differentiated 8in technologies ranging from 180nm to 65nm, covering eFlash, Power devices, Image sensors and High voltage processes

Suh also disclosed that Samsung is reviewing the possibility of EUV adoption very carefully and that readiness for mass production "will be determined accordingly."

Samsung has been in the advanced packaging field for over 30 years. SaYoon Kang, Senior Vice President, Package Development Team, said that his company has been leading in areas like PoP (Package on Package) and TSV (Through Silicon Via) technologies. Samsung os offering the following solutions:

• High density: latest offering include 2.5D interposer and future cost down options
• Thin & small form factor: cost sensitive options suitable for Mobile and Wearable products