In addition to developing the second and third-generation 2nm GAA processes, a new report states that Samsung is working to introduce its most advanced lithography, the 1nm process, dubbed the ‘dream semiconductor’ node. As expected, it will take a few years before the Korean giant is ready to showcase this technology.

The firm’s R&D schedule is said to be completed by 2030, with the manufacturing process slated to be introduced in 2031. Naturally, it is going to be a near-impossible feat shrinking the node from 2nm to 1nm, but Samsung is said to rely on a ‘fork sheet’ method, allowing for more transistors to be packed inside the same area.

With all three 2nm processes utilizing the GAA (Gate-All-Around) technology that maximizes power efficiency through expansion of the current path from three lanes to four, incorporating the same technique in the 1nm node won’t be as effective. According to Korea Economic Daily, Samsung aims to achieve the mass production of its sub-2nm technology by adding a non-conductive wall between GAA devices, similar to sticking a fork into the available space, hence the name fork sheet.

Similar to housing architecture, where lawns surround adjacent structures, Samsung’s approach is to remove those lawns and add more structures, creating more transistors within the same chip area. Last year, the Korean technology behemoth was rumored to have cancelled its 1.4nm process for undisclosed reasons, though it was later reported that the company had delayed this node to 2028 as it may have wanted to divert its attention to the 2nm GAA technology.

It’s also likely that Samsung kept facing production hurdles because it hadn’t explored adopting fork sheet during that time. With the help of additional research, the company may have scaled this problem, but only time will tell if its 1nm process is successful in execution. Looking at the Exynos 2600, which suffers from power spike problems that cause the SoC to consume 30W when running benchmarks like Geekbench 6, Samsung has yet to address the efficiency aspect of its 2nm GAA process.

This negative attribute also results in battery life degradation, which is why the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 version of the standard Galaxy S26 lasts for 28 percent longer than the Exynos 2600 variant. In short, Samsung has some chinks in its armor that it needs to address, starting with its second-generation 2nm GAA process, also known as SF2P.

By: DocMemory
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