2023-07-28 15:25:00
TSMC, Taiwanese manufacturer that leads the semiconductor market, has an extensive portfolio of customers including names like Apple, Qualcomm and NVIDIA. In a statement released on Thursday (27), the company revealed that it already has several orders for chips produced with its latest generation lithography, that is, 3 nanometer class.
According to the Taiwanese foundry, dozens of industry-leading companies are already embracing N3E lithographywhich should begin to be available in the market in 2024. The names of these customers were not revealed, but it is said that the technology will be driven by cell phones, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC).
The N3E will be a more powerful and efficient overhaul of the N3 process, which is expected to arrive later in 2023. Industry sources claim that Apple has ordered 90% of initial shipments of wafers manufactured with this lithograph and will use the chips for the A17 Bionic and M3, platforms that should power the 2024 iPhone 15 Pro and MacBook Air, according to rumors.
Another possible feature of the N3E is its lower production cost than that charged by the N3. With that, the wafers lithographs with the future technology should be cheaper, allowing manufacturers of processors, video cards and other components to have access to chips with greater density of transistors and, naturally, greater performance.
Apple and Qualcomm may use N3E in 2024
With the alleged massive order of chips produced in Apple’s N3, competition should continue using TSMC’s 4-nanometer class processes in 2023. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, for example, can maintain the 4-nanometer manufacturing of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The same rule should apply to the successor of the Dimensity 9200.
Qualcomm and MediaTek should migrate to the new generation when adopting the N3E in 2024. It is possible that Apple will also acquire chips with this lithography for the iPhone 16 Pro.
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By mentioning “artificial intelligence”, TSMC may have suggested that NVIDIA, one of the leading companies in the field, is one of the interested parties in the N3E process. Rumors indicate that AMD is another manufacturer that has ordered shipments of 3-nanometer chips. Intel also seems to be considering doing business with the Taiwanese company.
TSMC yield may give Samsung edge
According to information gathered this month, Samsung may have surpassed TSMC’s yield rate in producing 3-nanometer chips. People supposedly familiar with the matter claim that the manufacturer now has a 60% utilization, while the Taiwanese would have only 55%.
Yield rate indicates the percentage of functional chips that can be extracted from a wafer silicon following the lithography process. In the case above, this means that 4 out of 10 chips produced in a wafer of the South Korean have defects. The expectation is that, over the months, the factories will improve production efficiency.
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