Samsung Electronics foundry has reportedly bagged a mass production order for its cutting edge 2 nm EUV foundry node from Japanese AI chip startup PFN (Preferred Networks). This is reportedly the first major third party order for the 2 nm node. Founded in 2014, PFN specializes in AI and IoT chips, and spun off from Preferred Infrastructure. Samsung's 2 nm node, called the SF2, is on track for delivery of mass produced chips in 2025, which means much of 2024 will be spent on testing, validation, and risk production, with the node expected to go live toward the end of the year. Samsung SF2 is being designed to offer 25% higher power efficiency (at iso-clocks), and 12% increase in performance, over SF3 (3 nm EUV FinFET). In the semiconductor fabrication market, Samsung SF2 competes against TSMC N2 and Intel 20A.

According to a Bloomberg report, Intel is seeking to raise at least $2 billion in equity funding from investors for expanding its fabrication facility in Leixlip, Ireland, known as Fab 34. The chipmaker has hired an advisor to find potential investors interested in providing capital for the project. Fab 34 is currently Intel's only chip plant in Europe that uses cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. It produces processors on the Intel 4 process node, including compute tiles for Meteor Lake client CPUs and expected future Xeon data center chips. While $2 billion alone cannot finance the construction of an entirely new fab today, it can support meaningful expansion or upgrades of existing capacity. Intel likely aims to grow Fab 34's output and/or transition it to more advanced 3 nm-class technologies like Intel 3, Intel 20A, or Intel 18A.

Expanding production aligns with Intel's needs for its own products and its Intel Foundry Services business, providing contract manufacturing. Intel previously secured a $15 billion investment from Brookfield Infrastructure for its Arizona fabs in exchange for a 49% stake, demonstrating the company's willingness to partner to raise capital for manufacturing projects. The Brookfield deal also set a precedent of using outside financing to supplement Intel's own spending budget. It provided $15 billion in effectively free cash flow Intel can redirect to other priorities like new fabs without increasing debt. Intel's latest fundraising efforts for the Ireland site follow a similar equity investment model that leverages outside capital to support its manufacturing expansion plans. Acquiring High-NA EUV machinery for manufacturing is costly, as these machines can reach up to $380 million alone.

ASML has revealed that its cutting-edge High-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV) chipmaking tools, called High-NA Twinscan EXE, will cost around $380 million each—over twice as much as its existing Low-NA EUV lithography systems that cost about $183 million. The company has taken 10-20 initial orders from the likes of Intel and SK Hynix and plans to manufacture 20 High-NA systems annually by 2028 to meet demand. The High-NA EUV technology represents a major breakthrough, enabling an improved 8 nm imprint resolution compared to 13 nm with current Low-NA EUV tools. This allows chipmakers to produce transistors that are nearly 1.7 times smaller, translating to a threefold increase in transistor density on chips. Attaining this level of precision is critical for manufacturing sub-3 nm chips, an industry goal for 2025-2026. It also eliminates the need for complex double patterning techniques required presently.

However, superior performance comes at a cost - literally and figuratively. The hefty $380 million price tag for each High-NA system introduces financial challenges for chipmakers. Additionally, the larger High-NA tools require completely reconfiguring chip fabrication facilities. Their halved imaging field also necessitates rethinking chip designs. As a result, adoption timelines differ across companies - Intel intends to deploy High-NA EUV at an advanced 1.8 nm (18A) node, while TSMC is taking a more conservative approach, potentially implementing it only in 2030 and not rushing the use of these lithography machines, as the company's nodes are already developing well and on time. Interestingly, the installation process of ASML's High-NA Twinscan EXE 150,000-kilogram system required 250 crates, 250 engineers, and six months to complete. So, production is as equally complex as the installation and operation of this delicate machinery.

Japanese tech giant Canon hopes to shake up the semiconductor manufacturing industry by shipping new low-cost nanoimprint lithography (NIL) machines as early as this year. The technology, which stamps chip designs onto silicon wafers rather than using more complex light-based etching like market leader ASML's systems, could allow Canon to undercut rivals and democratize leading-edge chip production. "We would like to start shipping this year or next year...while the market is hot. It is a very unique technology that will enable cutting-edge chips to be made simply and at a low cost," said Hiroaki Takeishi, head of Canon's industrial group overseeing nanoimprint lithography technological advancement. Nanoimprint machines target a semiconductor node width of 5 nanometers, aiming to reach 2 nm eventually. Takeishi said the technology has primarily resolved previous defect rate issues, but success will depend on convincing customers that integration into existing fabrication plants is worthwhile.

There is skepticism about Canon's ability to significantly disrupt the market led by ASML's expensive but sophisticated extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools. However, if nanoimprint can increase yields to nearly 90% at lower costs, it could carve out a niche, especially with EUV supply struggling to meet surging demand. Canon's NIL machines are supposedly 40% the cost of ASML machinery, while operating with up to 90% lower power draw. Initially focusing on 3D NAND memory chips rather than complex processors, Canon must contend with export controls limiting sales to China. But with few options left, Takeishi said Canon will "pay careful attention" to sanctions risks. If successfully deployed commercially after 15+ years in development, Canon's nanoimprint technology could shift the competitive landscape by enabling new players to manufacture leading-edge semiconductors at dramatically lower costs. But it remains to be seen whether the new machines' defect rates, integration challenges, and geopolitical headwinds will allow Canon to disrupt the chipmaking giants it aims to compete with significantly.

Intel Corporation today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 financial results. "We delivered strong Q4 results, surpassing expectations for the fourth consecutive quarter with revenue at the higher end of our guidance," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "The quarter capped a year of tremendous progress on Intel's transformation, where we consistently drove execution and accelerated innovation, resulting in strong customer momentum for our products. In 2024, we remain relentlessly focused on achieving process and product leadership, continuing to build our external foundry business and at-scale global manufacturing, and executing our mission to bring AI everywhere as we drive long-term value for stakeholders."

David Zinsner, Intel CFO, said, "We continued to drive operational efficiencies in the fourth quarter, and comfortably achieved our commitment to deliver $3 billion in cost savings in 2023. We expect to unlock further efficiencies in 2024 and beyond as we implement our new internal foundry model, which is designed to drive greater transparency and accountability and higher returns on our owners' capital." For the full year, the company generated $11.5 billion in cash from operations and paid dividends of $3.1 billion.

AMD is looking to debut its Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture some time around May-June 2024, according to High Yield YT, a reliable source with AMD leaks. These processors will be built in the existing Socket AM5 package, and be compatible with all existing AMD 600 series chipset motherboards. It remains to be seen if AMD debuts a new line of motherboard chipsets. Almost all Socket AM5 motherboards come with the USB BIOS flashback feature, which means motherboards from even the earliest production batches that are in the retail channel, should be able to easily support the new processors.

AMD is giving its next-gen desktop processors the Ryzen 9000 series processor model numbering, as it used the Ryzen 8000 series for its recently announced Socket AM5 desktop APUs based on the "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon. "Granite Ridge" will be a chiplet-based processor, much like the Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael." In fact, it will even retain the same 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) as "Raphael," with some possible revisions made to increase its native DDR5 memory frequency (up from the current DDR5-5200), and improve its memory overclocking capabilities. It's being reported that DDR5-6400 could be the new "sweetspot" memory speed for these processors, up from the current DDR5-6000.

Today, ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2023 fourth quarter and full-year results.

• Q4 net sales of €7.2 billion, gross margin of 51.4%, net income of €2.0 billion
• Quarterly net bookings in Q4 of €9.2 billion of which €5.6 billion is EUV
• 2023 net sales of €27.6 billion, gross margin of 51.3%, net income of €7.8 billion
• ASML expects 2024 net sales to be similar to 2023
• ASML expects Q1 2024 net sales between €5.0 billion and €5.5 billion and a gross margin between 48% and 49%

CEO statement and outlook
"Our fourth-quarter net sales came in at €7.2 billion with a gross margin of 51.4%, both slightly above our guidance. ASML achieved another strong year in 2023 with 30% growth, ending with total net sales for the year of €27.6 billion, a gross margin of 51.3% and a backlog of €39 billion. We shipped the first modules of the first High NA EUV system, EXE:5000, to a customer before the end of the year."

Delays in the construction of its U.S. based semiconductor fab may have just cost the Chairman of TSMC his job, but the Koreans aren't faring any better. BusinessKorea reports that Samsung Electronics has pushed the timeline for mass-production in its upcoming Austin Texas-based fab to 2025. Its construction was originally slated to be complete by now, with risk production and testing through early 2024, and mass production later in the year, which has all been pushed to 2025. The company now hopes to push its first wafer toward the end of 2024, with mass production expected some time in 2025.

Samsung reportedly blames issues with U.S. Government subsidies and regulatory problems behind the delays. A key aspect of getting cutting edge Asian foundries such as TSMC and Samsung to invest in the U.S. had to do with government subsidies to help these fabs overcome the uphill task of doing so Stateside and making the venture profitable. The U.S. had a sense of urgency in bringing these companies over, as it saw a potential conflict across the Taiwan straits, which threatened to disrupt practically the entire global digital economy. The company's first production line in this foundry was expected to be 4 nm EUV FinFET. It remains to be seen just how relevant and cutting edge 4 nm EUV is in 2025, as both TSMC and Intel hope to have Nanosheet transistors and nodes such as the TSMC N2 and Intel 20A taking shape by then.

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) has successfully developed a photomask manufacturing process capable of accommodating the 3-nanometer (10-9 meter) lithography process that supports Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography, the cutting-edge process for semiconductor manufacturing.

Background
DNP has continually responded to the demands of semiconductor manufacturers in terms of performance and quality. In 2016, we became the world's first merchant photomask manufacturer to introduce the multi-beam mask writing tool (MBMW). In 2020, we developed a photomask manufacturing process for 5 nm EUV lithography processes, and have been supplying masks that meet the needs of the semiconductor market. In this latest development, in order to meet the needs of further miniaturization, we have developed a photomask for EUV lithography capable of supporting 3 nm processes.

Sony is developing the PlayStation 5 Pro console that targets higher refresh-rate gaming at 4K Ultra HD, or higher in-game eye-candy, given its faster hardware. Details about the console are few and far between, given its late-2024 tentative release, but by now the company would have co-developed its semi-custom SoC, so it could spend the next year extensively testing and optimizing it, before mass production in the 2-3 quarters leading up to the launch. Kepler_L2 and Tom Henderson on Twitter are fairly reliable sources for PlayStation hardware leaks, and piecing their recent posts together, VideoCardz compiled the most probable specs of the SoC at the heart of the PlayStation 5 Pro.

The semi-custom SoC powering the PlayStation 5 Pro is co-developed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and AMD; and is codenamed "Viola." The monolithic chip is built on the TSMC N4P foundry node (4 nm EUV), which is a big upgrade from the 7 nm DUV node on which the "Oberon" SoC powering the original PlayStation 5, and 6 nm DUV node powering the "Oberon Plus" SoC of the refreshed PS5, are based on. Sony is leaving the CPU component largely untouched, it is an 8-core/16-thread unit based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, spread across two 4-core CCXs. The CPU has a maximum boost frequency of 4.40 GHz, dialed up from the 3.50 GHz maximum boost of "Oberon." The iGPU is where all the magic happens.

AMD today announced the new Ryzen 8040 mobile processor series codenamed "Hawk Point." These chips are shipping to notebook manufacturers now, and the first notebooks powered by these should be available to consumers in Q1-2024. At the heart of this processor is a significantly faster neural processing unit (NPU), designed to accelerate AI applications that will become relevant next year, as Microsoft prepares to launch Windows 12, and software vendors make greater use of generative AI in consumer applications.

The Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" processor is almost identical in design and features to the Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix," except for a faster Ryzen AI NPU. While this is based on the same first-generation XDNA architecture, its NPU performance has been increased to 16 TOPS, compared to 10 TOPS of the NPU on the "Phoenix" silicon. AMD is taking a whole-of-silicon approach to AI acceleration, which includes not just the NPU, but also the "Zen 4" CPU cores that support the AVX-512 VNNI instruction set that's relevant to AI; and the iGPU based on the RDNA 3 graphics architecture, with each of its compute unit featuring two AI accelerators, components that make the SIMD cores crunch matrix math. The whole-of-silicon performance figures for "Phoenix" is 33 TOPS; while "Hawk Point" boasts of 39 TOPS. In benchmarks by AMD, "Hawk Point" is shown delivering a 40% improvement in vision models, and Llama 2, over the Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" series.

Today the Supervisory Board of ASML Holding NV (ASML) announces that it intends to appoint Christophe Fouquet, currently ASML's Chief Business Officer and member of the Board of Management, as the company's next President and Chief Executive Officer. The appointment is subject to notification of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on April 24, 2024. On the same date, ASML's Co-Presidents Peter Wennink and Martin van den Brink will retire from ASML upon completion of their current appointment terms.

Nils Andersen, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said: "The Supervisory Board, together with the management team, has gone through a comprehensive succession planning process. With Christophe, we have identified a very experienced leader with deep understanding of ASML's technology and the semiconductor industry ecosystem - acquired through different roles at ASML and other companies - and the right leadership qualities and culture fit. We are grateful and full of admiration for the immense contributions that Peter and Martin have made over decades, helping to shape ASML into the successful company that it is today. Peter and Martin have been preparing ASML for the future, and we know they will be fully engaged in securing a smooth transition for the company and all of ASML's stakeholders."

Rapidus Corporation, a company involved in the research, development, design, manufacture, and sales of advanced logic semiconductors, today announced an agreement with Tenstorrent Inc., a next-generation computing company building computers for AI, to jointly develop semiconductor IP (design assets) in the field of AI edge devices based on 2 nm logic semiconductors.

In addition to its AI processors and servers, Tenstorrent built and owns the world's most performant RISC-V CPU IP and licenses that technology to its customers around the world. Through this technological partnership with Rapidus, Tenstorrent will accelerate the development of cutting-edge devices to meet the needs of the ever-evolving digital society.

Today ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2023 third-quarter results.

• Q3 net sales of €6.7 billion, gross margin of 51.9%, net income of €1.9 billion
• Quarterly net bookings in Q3 of €2.6 billion of which €0.5 billion is EUV
• ASML expects Q4 2023 net sales between €6.7 billion and €7.1 billion and a gross margin between 50% and 51%
• ASML confirms its expectation to grow net sales towards 30% in 2023

CEO statement and outlook
"Our third-quarter net sales came in at €6.7 billion, around the midpoint of our guidance, with a gross margin of 51.9%, higher than guided, primarily driven by the DUV product mix and some one-off costs effects. "The semiconductor industry is currently working through the bottom of the cycle and our customers expect the inflection point to be visible by the end of this year. Customers continue to be uncertain about the shape of the demand recovery in the industry. We therefore expect 2024 to be a transition year. Based on our current perspective, we take a more conservative view and expect a revenue number similar to 2023. But we also look at 2024 as an important year to prepare for significant growth that we expect for 2025.

"Strix Point" is the codename for AMD's next-generation mobile processor succeeding the current Ryzen 7040 series "Phoenix." More details of the processor emerged thanks to "All The Watts!!" on Twitter. The CPU of "Strix Point" will be heterogenous, in that it will feature two different kinds of CPU cores, but with essentially the same ISA and IPC. It is rumored that the processor will feature 4 "Zen 5" CPU cores, and 8 "Zen 5c" cores.

Both core types feature an identical IPC, but the "Zen 5" cores can hold onto higher boost frequencies, and have a wider frequency band, than the "Zen 5c" cores. From what we can deduce from the current "Zen 4c" cores, "Zen 5c" cores aren't strictly "efficiency" cores, as they still offer the full breadth of core ISA as "Zen 5," including SMT. In its maximum configuration, "Strix Point" will hence be a 12-core/24-thread processor. The two CPU core types sit in two different CCX (CPU core complexes), the "Zen 5" CCX has 4 cores sharing a 16 MB L3 cache, while the "Zen 5c" CCX shares a 16 MB L3 cache among 8 cores. AMD will probably use a software-based solution to ensure the right kind of workload from the OS is processed by the right kind of CPU core.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) today announced that it will commence mass-production on its first silicon fabrication node that leverages extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, Intel 4. On September 29, the Intel 4 node will start rolling at the company's facility in Leixlip, Ireland, dubbed Fab 34. CEO Pat Gelsinger, Dr. Ann Kelleher, general manager of Technology Development at Intel, and Keyvan Esfarjani, chief global operations officer, will be present at a ceremony commemorating production of the first wafers.

Intel 4 is an advanced foundry that leverages EUV, and offers both transistor densities and electrical characteristics comparable to TSMC's 5 nm-class and 4 nm-class foundry nodes. Among the first chips to be built are the compute tiles of the company's Core "Meteor Lake" processors, which contain their next-generation CPU cores. Compared to the current Intel 7 node, Intel 4 offers double the area scaling for logic libraries, a 20% iso-power improvement, and introduces the new metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor.

Intel Corporation today announced that it has agreed to sell an approximately 10% stake in the IMS Nanofabrication business ("IMS") to TSMC. TSMC's investment values IMS at approximately $4.3 billion, consistent with the valuation of the recent stake sale to Bain Capital Special Situations ("Bain Capital"). Intel will retain majority ownership of IMS, which will continue to operate as a standalone subsidiary under the leadership of CEO Dr. Elmar Platzgummer. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023.

IMS is the established industry leader in multi-beam mask writing tools required to develop advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), which is broadly adopted in leading-edge technology nodes that enable the most demanding computing applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile. Together, Bain Capital and TSMC's investments provide IMS with increased independence and reinforce confidence in the significant opportunity ahead of IMS. This added autonomy will help IMS accelerate its growth and drive the next phase of lithography technology innovation to enable the industry's transition into new patterning systems, such as high-numerical-aperture (high-NA) EUV.

Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter 2023 financial results. "Our Q2 results exceeded the high end of our guidance as we continue to execute on our strategic priorities, including building momentum with our foundry business and delivering on our product and process roadmaps," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "We are also well-positioned to capitalize on the significant growth across the AI continuum by championing an open ecosystem and silicon solutions that optimize performance, cost and security to democratize AI from cloud to enterprise, edge and client."

David Zinsner, Intel CFO, said, "Strong execution, including progress towards our $3 billion in cost savings in 2023, contributed to the upside in the quarter. We remain focused on operational efficiencies and our Smart Capital strategy to support sustainable growth and financial discipline as we improve our margins and cash generation and drive shareholder value." In the second quarter, the company generated $2.8 billion in cash from operations and paid dividends of $0.5 billion.

Samsung on Wednesday announced mass-production of the world's first next-generation GDDR7 memory chips, and Ryan Smith from AnandTech scored a few technical details from the company. Apparently, the company's first production version of GDDR7 memory is built on the same D1z silicon foundry node as its 24 Gbps GDDR6 memory chip—the fastest GDDR6 chip in production. D1z is a 10 nm class foundry node that utilizes EUV lithography.

Smith also scored some electrical specs. The first-gen GDDR7 memory chip offers a data-rate of 32 Gbps at a DRAM voltage of 1.2 V, compared to the 1.35 V that some of the higher speed GDDR6 chips operate at. While the pJpb (pico-Joules per bit) is 7% higher than the current generation in absolute terms, for the 32 Gbps data-rate on offer, it is 20% lower compared to that of the 24 Gbps GDDR6 chip. Put simply, GDDR7 is 20% more energy efficient. Smith remarks that this energy-efficiency gain is purely architectural, and isn't a from any refinements to the D1z node. GDDR7 uses PAM3 signaling compared to the NRZ signaling of conventional GDDR6, and the PAM4 signalling of the GDDR6X non-JEDEC standard that NVIDIA co-developed with Micron Technology.

Today ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2023 second-quarter results.

• Q2 net sales of €6.9 billion, gross margin of 51.3%, net income of €1.9 billion
• Quarterly net bookings in Q2 of €4.5 billion of which €1.6 billion is EUV
• ASML expects Q3 2023 net sales between €6.5 billion and €7.0 billion and a gross margin of around 50%
• ASML expects 2023 net sales growth towards 30% compared to 2022

CEO statement and outlook
"Our second-quarter net sales came in at €6.9 billion, at the high end of our guidance, with a gross margin of 51.3%, higher than guided, primarily driven by additional DUV immersion revenue in the quarter. "Our customers across different market segments are currently more cautious due to continued macro-economic uncertainties, and therefore expect a later recovery of their markets. Also, the shape of the recovery slope is still unclear. However, our strong backlog of around €38 billion provides us with a good basis to navigate these short-term uncertainties.

Today the Dutch government has published the new regulations regarding export controls of semiconductor equipment. As announced earlier in March, the new export controls focus on advanced chip manufacturing technology, including the most advanced deposition and immersion lithography systems.

Due to these export control regulations, ASML will need to apply for export licenses with the Dutch government for all shipments of its most advanced immersion DUV lithography systems (TWINSCAN NXT:2000i and subsequent immersion systems). The Dutch government will determine whether to grant or deny the required export licenses and provide further details to the company on any conditions that apply.

Intel Corporation today announced that it has agreed to sell an approximately 20% stake in its IMS Nanofabrication GmbH ("IMS") business to Bain Capital Special Situations ("Bain Capital"), in a transaction that values IMS at approximately $4.3 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023. IMS will operate as a standalone subsidiary and will continue to be led by CEO Dr. Elmar Platzgummer.

Since inventing multi e-beam technology and introducing the first commercial multi-beam mask writer in 2015, Vienna, Austria-based IMS has been an industry leader in multi-beam mask writing for advanced technology nodes. Intel initially invested in IMS in 2009 and ultimately acquired the business in 2015. Since the acquisition, IMS has delivered a significant return on investment to Intel while growing its workforce and production capacity by four times and delivering three additional product generations.

Today, Intel announced the release of its newest quantum research chip, Tunnel Falls, a 12-qubit silicon chip, and it is making the chip available to the quantum research community. In addition, Intel is collaborating with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland, College Park's Qubit Collaboratory (LQC), a national-level Quantum Information Sciences (QIS) Research Center, to advance quantum computing research.

"Tunnel Falls is Intel's most advanced silicon spin qubit chip to date and draws upon the company's decades of transistor design and manufacturing expertise. The release of the new chip is the next step in Intel's long-term strategy to build a full-stack commercial quantum computing system. While there are still fundamental questions and challenges that must be solved along the path to a fault-tolerant quantum computer, the academic community can now explore this technology and accelerate research development."—Jim Clarke, director of Quantum Hardware, Intel

A SemiAnalysis report sheds light on just how much smaller the "Zen 4c" CPU core is compared to the regular "Zen 4." AMD's upcoming high core-count enterprise processor for cloud data-center deployments, the EPYC "Bergamo," is based on the new "Zen 4c" microarchitecture. Although with the same ISA as "Zen 4," the "Zen 4c" is essentially a low-power, lite version of the core, with significantly higher performance/Watt. The core is physically smaller than a regular "Zen 4" core, which allows AMD to create CCDs (CPU core dies) with 16 cores, compared to the current "Zen 4" CCD with 8.

The 16-core "Zen 4c" CCD is built on the same 5 nm EUV foundry node as the 8-core "Zen 4" CCD, and internally features two CCX (CPU core complex), each with 8 "Zen 4c" cores. Each of the two CCX shares a 16 MB L3 cache among the cores. The SemiAnalysis report states that the dedicated L2 cache size of the "Zen 4c" core remains at 1 MB, just like that of the regular "Zen 4." Perhaps the biggest finding is their die-size estimation, which puts the 16-core "Zen 4c" CCD just 9.6% larger in die-area, than the 8-core "Zen 4" CCD. That's 72.7 mm² per CCD, compared to 66.3 mm² of the regular 8-core "Zen 4" CCD.

During the European Technology Symposium 2023, TSMC presented additional details regarding the upcoming complementary FET (CFET) technology to power the next generation of silicon-based devices. With Nanosheet replacing FinFET, the CFET technology will do the same to the Gate All Around FET (GAAFET) Nanosheet nodes. As the company notes, CFET transistors are now in the TSMC labs and are being tested for performance, efficiency, and density. Compared to GAAFET, CFET will provide greater design in all of those areas, but it will require some additional manufacturing steps to get the chip working as intended. Integrating both p-type and n-type FETs into a single device, CFET will require the use of High NA EUV scanners with high precision and high power to manufacture it.

The use of CFET, as the roadmap shows, is one of the last steps in the world of silicon. It will require the integration of new materials into the manufacturing process, resulting in a greater investment into research and development that is in charge of node creation. Kevin Zhang, senior vice president at TSMC, responsible for technology roadmap and business development, notes: "Let me make a clarification on that roadmap, everything beyond the Nanosheet is something we will put on our [roadmap] to tell you there is still future out there. We will continue to work on different options. I also have the add on to the one-dimensional material-[based transistors] […], all of those are being researched on being investigated on the future potential candidates right now, we will not tell you exactly the transistor architecture will be beyond the Nanosheet."