Samsung completes 8nm RF technology development: reduces area by 35% and increases power by 35%

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced today that it has completed the development of radio frequency (RF) technology based on an 8-nanometer production process. This cutting-edge foundry technology is expected to provide a "chip solution", especially by supporting multi-channel and multi antenna chip designs to enhance 5G network communication. The launch of this 8-nanometer RF platform will further consolidate Samsung's important position in the 5G semiconductor market.

Samsung's 8-nanometer RF process technology is a new addition to the widely used RF related solution portfolio, including 28 nanometer and 14 nanometer RF. Since 2017, the company has established its leading position in the RF market by shipping over 500 million mobile RF chips to high-end smartphones.

Hyung Jin Lee, head of Samsung's OEM technology development team, said, "Through cutting-edge innovation and manufacturing processes, we have strengthened our next-generation wireless communication products. With the expansion of 5G mmWave, Samsung's 8-nanometer RF will become the best solution for customers seeking long battery life and excellent signal quality on compact mobile devices.".

As it continues to expand to nodes, digital circuits have shown significant improvements in performance, power consumption, and area (PPA), while analog/RF blocks have not enjoyed such improvements due to degenerative components such as increased resistance caused by narrow linewidths. Therefore, most communication chips often see degradation in RF characteristics, such as deterioration in amplification performance of received frequencies and increased power consumption.

In order to overcome the challenges of analog/RF scaling, Samsung has developed a unique 8-nanometer RF specific architecture called RFextremeFET (RFeFET), which can significantly improve RF characteristics while using less power. Compared to 14 nanometer RF, Samsung's RFeFET supplements the extension of digital PPA while restoring the extension of analog/RF, thus achieving a high-performance 5G platform.

Samsung's process optimization greatly improves channel fluidity while minimizing parasitic effects. Due to the improved performance of RFeFET, the total number of transistors and the area of analog/RF blocks in the RF chip can be reduced.

Compared with the 14 nanometer RF technology, Samsung's 8 nanometer RF process technology can improve power efficiency by up to 35% while reducing the RF chip area, thanks to the innovation of the RFeFET architecture.

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