After the transfer ceremony of TSMC's new U.S. plant in early December. TSMC made a high-profile announcement that it will hold a 3nm mass production and factory expansion ceremony at South University of Science and Technology on the 29th, which will directly demonstrate TSMC's strength and actual mass production capabilities.
The industry believes that TSMC needs to get rid of various speculations and misunderstandings in the near future, and prove that the principle of continuous investment in Taiwan and mass production of advanced manufacturing processes in Taiwan remains unchanged.
This move is also a demonstration of TSMC's technological strength. The rival Samsung Foundry Division previously called out to take the lead in mass production of 3nm in the first half of 2022, and even rushed to hold a 3nm shipment mass production ceremony on June 30, the last day of the first half of the year and open the media. Taking pictures is considered to be called TSMC. However, Wei Zhejia explained the mass production of 3nm this year and the timetable for 2nm at the technical forum, which reassured customers. At that time, the technical forum invited customers to speak out.
Wei Zhejia previously stated in a technical forum that TSMC's 3nm "has unspeakable difficulties", but it will soon be mass-produced and maintain the fin field effect transistor (FinFET) structure, mainly because the process technology "not only looks good, but also sounds good." The relevant conversation did not name competitors, but it still made the outside world think that it was an insinuation of Samsung's foundry business unit that was previously publicized.
TSMC has repeatedly announced that it will mass-produce 3nm in Nanke this year. It has been stated at this year's technical forum that Nanke Wafer 18 is the main production base for the 3nm process, and the 3nm process technology will be another full-generation process after the 5nm process technology. , The 3nm family includes multiple combinations. 3nm will be mass-produced this year, N3E will be mass-produced in the second half of next year, and N3P will be planned for the next year.
TSMC's 3nm seven major customers line up
In August 2022, there were frequent reports that TSMC, the leading wafer foundry, may delay the construction of 3nm production capacity, but TSMC has reiterated that the expansion of 3nm production will continue as originally planned. Under normal circumstances, Apple will be the first customer to adopt 3nm chip production at the end of this year, but this year Apple's latest A16 processor uses TSMC's 4nm process. In the second half of next year, Intel will expand the use of 3nm to produce processor chips (tiles), including AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Broadcom, etc., and will complete the opening of 3nm new chips next year and the year after.
External environmental variables such as the Russian-Ukraine war and global inflation have led to weak demand for consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops, which may lead to a slowdown in demand for data centers and high-performance computing (HPC). There are still doubts about the effective removal in the first half of next year, but based on past historical experience, the recession usually makes the semiconductor industry speed up the development of new chips.
With the gradual release of the next-generation chip technology blueprints of major semiconductor and system manufacturers, and the transition to TSMC's 3nm process, this is why TSMC is confident that the 3nm family will become another large-scale and long-term demand for process technology. Therefore, after TSMC's Fab 18B plant for 3nm manufacturing began to enter mass production, the 3nm fab construction plan of the P7~P9 plants including the Fab 18 plant area has also started.
Apple is the preferred customer of TSMC's advanced manufacturing process. According to equipment manufacturers and Apple's production chain industry, next year, including the new iPhone dedicated A17 application processor, as well as the M2 and M3 series processors, will be imported into TSMC's 3nm film.
Although Intel intends to compete for business opportunities in the foundry market, after its own processor adopts chiplet chip design, the built-in graphics chip or computing chip will be mass-produced in the second half of next year using TSMC's 3nm process. Intel's GPU, FPGA, etc. will also use TSMC's 3nm production in the next year or the next year.
In addition, although AMD is lagging behind Intel in the adoption of advanced manufacturing processes, judging from the technical blueprint, after AMD transitions to the Zen 5 architecture next year or the next year, some products have already been confirmed to use TSMC's 3nm manufacturing process. As for major customers such as Nvidia, MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Broadcom, they will also complete 3nm chip design and start mass production after 2024.
TSMC is expected to stay on the 3nm process node for 2.75 years (based on Seeking Alpha's calculations), and 3 years on the 2nm node, and TSMC will not make any additional innovations in the next 5 years. This could help Intel and Samsung foundries catch up with TSMC. Don't expect Apple to change, though, as the company has been a loyal TSMC customer for years.
