There’s an interesting rumor out now about Nintendo’s choice of SOC with Samsung.
Korean news outlet ChosunBiz, subsidiary of Chosun Ilbo, has a report about Samsung expanding both their 5 nanometer and 8 nanometer foundries. These foundries, also referred to as fabs or semiconductor fabrication plants, are deep in the center of modern technology today. They make integrated circuits, which have now progressed to the point that they are miniaturized to sizes beyond what the human eye can see.
When you hear of these chips being nanometer, 8 nanometer, or 10 nanometer, these refer to just how miniaturized these chips are getting. To put that in context, a human nail grows at the rate of one nanometer per second. However, the smaller these chips are getting, the more complex the manufacturing process is. As a result, these fabs have an expected failure rate. The reason companies like TSMC and Samsung are considered better at managing their foundries than Intel, is they have the experience and expertise to minimize that failure rate far better than Intel.
ChosunBiz’s report about Samsung includes a rumor about Nintendo choosing between 5-nanometer and 8-nanometer chips. As translated by DeepL, this is what ChosunBiz says:
Initially, Nintendo was torn between Samsung’s 5-nanometer process and 8-nanometer process, but reportedly chose the 8-nanometer process, which does not use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. This is because while the chip performance is slightly lower than 5nm, it offers advantages in terms of unit cost and yield. Nintendo also considered TSMC’s 7-nanometer and 8-nanometer processes, but Samsung’s foundry was reportedly chosen because of its faster, more reliable delivery and cost advantages.
It’s easy to rationalize why Nintendo chose the less sophisticated 8 nanometer SOC for the Switch 2. When ChosunBiz refers to ‘yield,’ that actually refers to the Samsung foundry’s success rate in making these SOCs. If Nintendo went with the 5 nanometer process from the start, it’s more likely that they would have less SOCs available, and that means they couldn’t make as many Switch 2 units.
It’s also notable that ChosunBiz claims that the 8 nanometer process has ‘slightly lower’ performance than the 5 nanometer process. If Nintendo does go ahead with making a 5 nanometer Switch 2 Pro, or possibly a – ̗̀ New ̖́- Nintendo Switch 2, it won’t be that much more powerful that it should be relegated to a new console generation.
The existence of a Switch 2 upgrade in a few years will be highly dependent on how well Samsung refines their 5 nanometer process to improve their ‘yield’, or success rate in making chips. It won’t be the only factor, but if Nintendo sees they’ll be perpetually understocked in making upgraded Switch 2s, they may ultimately pass on it.
