Semiconductor Industry Roundup (June–July 2025): Advanced Chips, Equipment, and Geopolitics
The summer of 2025 saw significant strides in cutting-edge semiconductor process nodes. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. continued to lead in 3 nm production, reportedly achieving near 90% yield on its 3 nm process – far ahead of rival Samsung Foundry’s roughly 50% yield design-reuse.com. These yield discrepancies have driven more high-profile customers toward TSMC, allowing it to command premium pricing design-reuse.com design-reuse.com. Samsung, which pioneered 3 nm gate-all-around technology in 2022, still struggles to reach competitive yields and has even lost some mobile chip orders to TSMC, though it secured Google’s Tensor G5 on 3 nm and other new clients for older nodes design-reuse.com design-reuse.com. Both TSMC and Samsung are now racing toward 2 nm technology. TSMC’s 2 nm is on track for risk production and aims for high-volume manufacturing in late 2025 or early 2026 reuters.com reuters.com. Industry reports in June detailed a “fierce race” between TSMC and Samsung to debut 2 nm chips, with TSMC widely seen as ahead in yield and timing design-reuse.com. Samsung is prioritizing improvements to its 2 nm and 4 nm nodes and has reportedly postponed any 1.4 nm “trial line” investments, indicating its 1.4 nm node is unlikely to arrive before 2028–2029 design-reuse.com.
