Samsung says its 3nm chips with gate-all-around transistor tech are delayed until 2022, and its 2nm chips will arrive in 2025
Stephen Shankland / CNET : Source: Samsung Global Newsroom .
Context & Ripple Effects
This delay unwinds Samsung's own schedule: back in May 2019 it claimed it would ship 3nm chips with gate-all-around transistors in 2021, promising 35% faster performance and 50% lower power than its 7nm parts. Slipping the first GAA node to 2022 and pegging 2nm at 2025 turns that pledge into a one-year miss and stretches the cadence between leading-edge nodes.
The timing matters because Samsung was already under pressure at the foundry — reporting later detailed it losing Qualcomm and Nvidia's business to TSMC while Galaxy chips lagged iPhone silicon. A delayed 3nm node lands squarely in that competitive gap.
First-order effects
- Samsung's foundry customers now face an extra year without access to its most advanced node, hardening the losses to TSMC among marquee clients like Qualcomm and Nvidia who cannot wait out the slip.
- Naming 2025 for 2nm gives buyers a dated commitment, but it also signals Samsung is sequencing nodes more conservatively than its original 2019 plan implied.
Second-order effects
- TSMC gains another window to consolidate leading-edge orders before Samsung's GAA volume arrives, reinforcing the customer defections already documented and pressuring Samsung to compete on price or packaging rather than node leadership.
- A slower node ramp feeds directly into Samsung's capacity problems downstream — by mid-2025 its Texas fab completion had slipped to 2026 for lack of customers, showing how a thin leading-edge pipeline compounds across the fab buildout.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Samsung becomes a fast-follower in logic nodes — its October 2022 roadmap (second-gen 3nm in 2024, 2nm in 2025, 1.4nm in 2027) formalized the slower cadence this delay began — leaving the leading edge contested mainly between TSMC and whoever else can hold a two-year rhythm.
- Repeated slips push chip buyers toward multi-sourcing strategies, since anchoring a product line to a single foundry's node calendar has proven costly for customers caught in Samsung's delays.
The trend: Samsung's process-node timelines keep stretching — from the missed 2021 target through later roadmap and fab delays — ceding leading-edge foundry share to TSMC and pushing customers toward dual-sourcing.