Samsung is the first company to introduce 3nm chip technology before TSMC in 2022. But at this point TSMC receives the most orders from other manufacturers because the issue of low yield has not yet been resolved.
According to a report from South Korea, SF3E-3GAE which is Samsung's first generation 3nm technology has a yield percentage of only 50-60% which is below the 70% target set by the company. More surprisingly, SF3-3GAP which is the second generation 3nm technology has a yield as low as 20% which is very low compared to the target set by Samsung.
This is believed to be the reason why no manufacturer uses Samsung's 3nm foundry and chooses TSMC's 3nm N3E technology which is reported to achieve a yield as high as 80%. N3E is TSMC's third-generation 3nm technology that improves on the shortcomings of the first generation which gives a yield of around 55%.
A higher yield will reduce costs, avoid waste and enable chip production at a higher rate. Among TSMC's 3nm technology users are Qualcomm with the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple with the Apple A18 and Apple M4.