According to recent reports, TSMC is doing all it can to strengthen its leading position in the chip industry. The company is stepping up its efforts to build its own supply chain. This will allow it to advance the commercial speed of more advanced processes faster than its competitors. TSMC hopes to enhance its supply flexibility and shorten the development time for new products. Of course, this will reduce unnecessary costs in the development process.
For the 5nm process which is already in mass production, TSMC hopes to improve the corresponding yield, expand production capacity, and thereby attract more customers. The company is doing the same thing for the 3nm process.
According to reports, TSMC intends to purchase 55 units of EUV lithography before the end of 2021. As of now, half of the world’s EUV lithography machines are with TSMC. The acquisition of more machines will accelerate the development of EUV-related processes.
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3NM – 15% MORE PERFORMANCE FOR 25% LESS ENERGY
The new 5nm process already brings a set of interesting benefits to performance at a low power expense. Come the 3nm standard, and we can only expect to see these benefits reach interesting levels. For a quick comparison between the 3nm and 5nm standard, the former will bring 15 percent greater transistor density. Moreover, it will represent a performance increase of 10 to 15 percent. Energy efficiency, on other hand, will be increased by 20 to 25 percent.
According to reports, TSMC is already planning the production of the upcoming Apple A16 chipset that will be made on the 3nm chipset. This particular chipset is scheduled to come only by 2022. In the next years, Apple A15 probably will keep the 5nm standard or even boost a 5nm+ node. Meanwhile, Samsung, another strong company in the segment is also gearing for the production of the 3nm process. In fact, the South-Korean firm will be manufacturing the next year’s Snapdragon 875 SoC that will also bet on the 5nm node. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Qualcomm keeping this partnership for a future 3nm-based chip.
Apart from Apple, TSMC will look for future partnerships for 3nm chipsets. The loss of Huawei’s partnership certainly brought an impact on the company, but we expect to see it overcoming it in the next years. In fact, there are already speculations that TSMC’s 3nm process is already full.
