TSMC to Roll Out 3nm Plus Manufacturing Process in 2023

[Raevenlord]

The possibility barely exists to account for all the silicon manufacturing processes currently in development; TSMC themselves are rolling out 5 nm, 4 nm, 3 nm, and 2 nm processes at various points in time in the future. Now, the company has announced that it will be rolling out a revision of the 3 nm manufacturing process, named 3 nm Plus, come 2023. According to DigiTimes, the Taiwanese manufacturer's first client for this process will be Apple.

There is no information on what exactly 3 nm Plus leverages and offers over the "vanilla" 3 nm process. It could be anything from higher transistor density, lower power consumption, or higher operating frequency - or maybe a mixture of the three. The original 3 nm manufacturing process is set to offer a 15% performance gain over the current top-of-the-line 5 nm node, with 30% decreased power use and up to 70% density increase. Interestingly, TSMC is keeping their FinFet manufacturing technology, on grounds of better implementation costs and higher power efficiency compared to the more exotic GAA (Gate-All-Around) technology that its rival Samsung, for one, aims to implement in 3 nm.



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[ZoneDymo]

ok cool but, what is global foundry's up to?

 

[z1n0x]

ok cool but, what is global foundry's up to?

Global what?
Are they still licensing processes from Samsung or they don't even bother with that anymore?

 

[Raevenlord]

ok cool but, what is global foundry's up to?

Canceled all next-gen processes and are focusing on silicon photonics as a halo process. Introduced many iterations of 22nm and 12nm processes for various clients (they're focusing on Cloud, Edge AI, eMRAM, HBM...) They're no longer competing as a leading edge semiconductor fab for the clients we usually think of.

 

[windwhirl]

"TSMC is keeping their FinTech manufacturing technology"

Don't you mean FinFET?

That aside, no surprise Apple is their first costumer lining up for the new process.

"The original 3 nm manufacturing process is set to offer a 15% performance gain over the current top-of-the-line 5 nm node, with 30% decreased power use and up to 70% density increase."

The performance gain and power decrease seem to be normal, so to speak, but the density is interesting. That's a lot of transistors packed together. Wondering if at that level electromigration is gonna become a problem to look out for...

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Intel with 14 nm+++++++++++++ be like:

 

[Rictorhell]

Hoping to be "wowed" by some of these future 3nm+ products, in particular Apple's items. Not just their traditional incremental battery life improvements and "WHOA" this item is 30% thinner than it was last year.

Not sure what I expect from technology these days. I want "more", but I'm not exactly sure what that means, exactly. I think I would want technology to play more of a role in my "day to day" life, just to make things a little more interesting and interactive. Augmented Reality apps and services might play some role in that.

I still think "higher-end" pc tech needs to get a bit more affordable, so that even people that aren't die hard fans and users would be able to consider more hardware and software purchases; Apple Watches, and things like that, for example.

If we get to a point where you can Facetime someone, 3 dimensionally, via a full color hologram or something, even with the hologram having some kind of tactile feedback, so you can actually touch and interact with it; we're getting somewhere.

We're still in the land of 2D, where everything is based on a monitor or a screen. We really need to get beyond that, to something much more futuristic and interactive.

Instead of just a voice, I kind of feel like I should actually be able to see "Siri" by now, physically, and speak to "her" directly.

VR Helmets are a step in the right direction, but we need to get that type of experience, without the requirement of the helmet.

If I had to have a home set-up, from the planning stage, with a digital, immersive, PC Room, with 3D Imaging, Holograms, the works, I think that's where 3nm and all these future process nodes SHOULD be taking us.

If I'm bored to death, and it's the middle of the night, but I can step into our PC Room, essentially a "Holodeck", and play a life-size, real-time 3D game of chess, that literally fills the entire room, and is interactive, that is E-X-C-I-T-I-N-G.

At that point we're no longer in the infancy of computing, we're in the actual FUTURE.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I doubt Intel will even have 7nm by then, even though technically the feature sizes aren't really related to the process node size.

 

[Hardware Geek]

Hoping to be "wowed" by some of these future 3nm+ products, in particular Apple's items. Not just their traditional incremental battery life improvements and "WHOA" this item is 30% thinner than it was last year.

Not sure what I expect from technology these days. I want "more", but I'm not exactly sure what that means, exactly. I think I would want technology to play more of a role in my "day to day" life, just to make things a little more interesting and interactive. Augmented Reality apps and services might play some role in that.

I still think "higher-end" pc tech needs to get a bit more affordable, so that even people that aren't die hard fans and users would be able to consider more hardware and software purchases; Apple Watches, and things like that, for example.

If we get to a point where you can Facetime someone, 3 dimensionally, via a full color hologram or something, even with the hologram having some kind of tactile feedback, so you can actually touch and interact with it; we're getting somewhere.

We're still in the land of 2D, where everything is based on a monitor or a screen. We really need to get beyond that, to something much more futuristic and interactive.

Instead of just a voice, I kind of feel like I should actually be able to see "Siri" by now, physically, and speak to "her" directly.

VR Helmets are a step in the right direction, but we need to get that type of experience, without the requirement of the helmet.

If I had to have a home set-up, from the planning stage, with a digital, immersive, PC Room, with 3D Imaging, Holograms, the works, I think that's where 3nm and all these future process nodes SHOULD be taking us.

If I'm bored to death, and it's the middle of the night, but I can step into our PC Room, essentially a "Holodeck", and play a life-size, real-time 3D game of chess, that literally fills the entire room, and is interactive, that is E-X-C-I-T-I-N-G.

At that point we're no longer in the infancy of computing, we're in the actual FUTURE.

May I come over and play too?

 

[m4dn355]

May I come over and play too?

Everyone is invited since it is controlled by AdvancedAI.

 

[BArms]

I doubt Intel will even have 7nm by then, even though technically the feature sizes aren't really related to the process node size.

Once again, there will be nothing 3nm about this "3nm" node. It would be far more accurate if TSMC called their "3nm" node 10nm+++ instead, assuming you want to compare it to how Intel names their process nodes.