TSMC is set to ship the 3nm process technology chipset for mass production in the second half of 2022. On the occasion of the ongoing annual Technology Symposium, the Taiwanese manufacturer has revealed a different architecture for the N3 compared to its rival Samsung.
The company, though, is already manufacturing the 5nm process technology chipset, aka, N5 with Apple to be a major client that could use it in the upcoming iPhone 12 series.
However, there is much more coming up prior to the N3 including the N5P that uses the same foundry as in the N5 while bringing in increased speed and power reduction by 5% and 10% respectively, and the N4 with evolved EUV layers. The N5P will ship for the manufacturing process in 2021, while the N4 will go on development in Q4 2021 with production and distribution to kick off at the beginning of 2022.
TSMC will be building 3nm chips using the FinFET transistors to achieve a 10-15% performance increment and decreased power consumption maxing out to 30%. It’s scaling the logic area by 1.7 times, i.e. 0.58 times the N5. On the other hand, Samsung has been using the GAA structure in its chipsets.
But the shrinkage doesn’t apply to every component, since they can’t keep up with a common mathematical number while delivering optimal performance. Hence, the die will be smaller by around 26% owing to the constraints of SRAM.
The 3nm chipsets could make to the smartphones anytime between November 2022 to January 2023.
