The large foundry still uses FinFET in 3nm Plus processors and its competition with Samsung is significant to its future development.
According to the announcement of TSMC on December 19, the company is developing 3nm plus processor technology and plans to go into mass production in 2023. A person who is familiar with the matter said that, like 3nm processor technology (N3), it is estimated that Apple will still be the first client of the product.
Compared with 3nm processors (N3), 3nm plus processor technology is projected to focus on achieving lower power consumption and improving performance. As a core competitive power of the company, TSMC’s 3nm processor (N3) has 10-15% better performance and has a 25-30% higher transistor proficiency than 5nm processors at the same power levels. Meanwhile, the density of transistors has increased by over 70% on 3nm processors.
The company is not the only one in the world that has 3nm processor manufacturing capacity; Samsung Group is also equipped with such capacity. Unlike TSMC using FinFET technology on 3nm and 3nm plus processors, Samsung uses GAA technology on its 3nm chips manufacturing process, which TSMC will use on its 2nm chips in the future. Competition between the two foundry leaders will be vital to the development of TSMC in the next 3 years.