In response, the equipment using cobalt as a new material has already been shipped to fabs. The market inferred that both TSMC and Samsung are buyers. The main reason for this is that only wafer foundries currently entering the 7-nanometer manufacturing process are TSMC and Samsung.
TSMC's 7-nm manufacturing process is focused on production at Zhongke and is currently in volume production. It exclusively manufactures the latest A12 processor for Apple's OEM. However, Samsung also announced that it has successfully obtained Qualcomm’s high-end mobile phone chip orders at 7nm and is actively fighting for it. Apple's new processor, the two sides battle in the 7-nanometer confrontation does not stop.
Economic Daily provided
Since the material is the most important supplier of key foundry machines, the industry expects that with TSMC, Samsung will introduce the latest materials technology and equipment, and the two sides will once again fight against each other with a war of 7 nanometers or less. It also accelerates artificial intelligence (AI) chip functions more powerfully.
Responsible for the use of cobalt metal to solve the current critical die size reduction, the traditional tungsten and copper metal materials in the process of 10 nanometers or less, facing its electrical conductivity in the transistor junction and the local middle of the metal wire process Approaching the limits of the physical limits, the technical bottleneck that can't smoothly shrink, let the advanced semiconductor process continue to advance.
Reluctant to disclose the wafer fabs that have adopted this new material technology and equipment, only to disclose that the latest development has completed the use of cobalt as a transistor junction to connect part of the copper wire, allowing the chip performance and power consumption to be presented again. The law pursues the goal of PPAC (higher efficiency, lower power consumption, smaller area and lower cost).
It is believed that this is the biggest change in semiconductor materials in the past 20 years, and may allow long-term use of tungsten metal, gradually disappearing in the semiconductor advanced process.
It should be emphasized that the use of cobalt compared to tungsten material can greatly increase transistor performance, power consumption can be significantly reduced by 87%, wafers can be under the smooth contraction, to achieve improved performance, power consumption, and cost reduction goals.