Intel's difficult production on the 14nm, 10nm process has given other semiconductor companies an opportunity to catch up. Since 20nm will not be able to launch 10nm chips before, Samsung will have 7nm technology from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in volume production this year. This round of competition Intel After losing, even if the official announced its own 10nm process several times in performance, the transistor density is better than the 7nm node of other homes. It is no longer useful. At the 7nm node, TSMC is already ambitious, except for the 7nm Vega mentioned by AMD. In addition to the chip, TSMC also holds more than 50 7-nm chips. The new process performance can be increased by 35% or the power consumption can be reduced by 65%. After the upgrade to 5nm, the performance can be further increased by 15%, and the power consumption can be reduced by 20%.
EEtimes reported today the TSMC process roadmap. The official announcement of 7nm and future 5nm process details, first of all the first generation of 7nm process, will be in volume production this year, followed by more than 50 chips in succession, involving the CPU, GPU, AI chip, cryptocurrency chip, network, game, 5G, autopilot chip etc.
The performance of the 7nm process will increase by 35%, or the power consumption will be reduced by 65%, and the chip density will reach 3 times the level. The original here does not mention who it is compared to, but it cannot be 10nm. The result of comparing the TSMC official website with the 10nm process is The performance is improved by 20% or the power consumption is reduced by 40%, the chip density is 1.6 times, so the comparison here is probably the TSMC 16nm process.
The first generation 7nm process does not use EUV lithography process, N7+ nodes will use EUV lithography machine, but this is a change in the manufacturing process, N7+ process performance is not changed, the transistor density is increased by about 20%, power consumption is reduced by 10% .
In addition, although the current yield rate of the N7+ process is good, there are some key units that cannot be completed until the end of this year or early next year. The EDA tool for the complete N7+ process is expected to wait until August.
After 7nm, TSMC also risked trial production of a 5nm process this year. Compared with the initial 7nm process, TSMC's 5nm process can reduce energy consumption by 20%, and the transistor density is 1.8 times higher. As for performance, it is expected to increase by 15%. The use of new equipment may increase by 25%.
According to the previous plan, TSMC's 5nm process is expected to be in volume production in 2020, when Intel's smooth words may enter the 7nm node.