The struggles experienced by Samsung’s foundry business could be on their way out because the 4nm process, which was previously said to be a nightmare for the Korean giant, is slowly stabilizing, with the latest report mentioning a 60-70 percent yield range. This improvement has landed a major order for Samsung on its older technology, with a U.S. firm requiring an Omni Processing Unit (OPU) and having pre-ordered more than $100 million of these chips.

The 4nm node has haunted Samsung due to less-than-stellar yields, but improving its older-generation processes can bring it closer to achieving profitability for the foundry business

Tsavorite Scalable Intelligence, an AI company based in the U.S., reportedly requires an OPU, which combines the CPU, GPU, and memory on a single chip. Back in November, Reuters mentioned that the company secured over $100 million in pre-orders for AI chips to scale its workflow, but didn’t mention the manufacturer. Now, AJUNEWS reports that the firm has pre-ordered approximately 150 billion won, or in excess of $100 billion, in AI chips from Samsung.

Orders on an older manufacturing process will allow Tsavorite Scalable Intelligence to save up drastically on chips, and with 3nm and 2nm nodes picking up in demand, Samsung could offer customers sizable discounts for its 4nm wafers. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the semiconductor manufacturer was its poor yields, which not only afflicted its 3nm GAA technology but also caused setbacks after setbacks, causing it to lose orders to TSMC.

Despite a recent report stating that Samsung’s first 2nm GAA chipset, the Exynos 2600, hasn’t entered full-scale production, back in September, we talked about how the company had commenced mass manufacturing of the SoC, with yields standing at 50 percent. More evidence of Samsung’s foundry comeback can be highlighted by the latter receiving orders from two Chinese cryptocurrency mining equipment manufacturers and forging a $16.5 billion deal with Tesla.

A $100 million pre-order from Tsavorite Scalable Intelligence is a drop in the bucket compared to the scale that Samsung can operate on, but it is a small step for the company to take its estimated profit to $69 billion for 2026, and transform its foundry business into a cash-flow-positive entity by 2027.

By: DocMemory
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