1nm chips and 1 billion transistors

TSMC's leading position in the semiconductor manufacturing industry is as strong as ASML in the lithography equipment market or NVIDIA in artificial intelligence devices. Its market share currently hovers around 54%, which is the number that puts it at A noticeable advantage over Intel and SamsungWhich is considered its strongest competitor. The two companies have a stake of about 17%.

However, these last two companies are going very strong. They both aspire to increase their weight in the integrated circuit production market by taking a piece of their pie from TSMC, and they are making very clear steps that point in that direction. Samsung has been producing 3nm chips since 2022, like TSMC, although we have concrete indicators that lead us to conclude that the performance per chip it obtains is less than 70%, a value that is considered the minimum to guarantee the profitability of this integration technology.

For its part, Intel has adopted a very ambitious strategy since Pat Gelsinger came to the company's leadership. One component of his recipe is to invest at least $80 million in development Many advanced integrated circuit factories Which should be ready long before the end of this decade. Gelsinger, on the other hand, aimed to have the best transistors and most advanced integration technology on the planet by 2025. That's it.

TSMC will not hand over the baton easily

The battle that TSMC, Intel and Samsung will wage over the remainder of the decade will be fierce. Oddly enough, the three companies will almost certainly coordinate their strategy around the same key piece: ASML's new equipment for extreme ultraviolet (UVE) and high-aperture photolithography. The first of them is about to arrive at Intel's factory in Hillsboro (USA) to begin the testing phase, but during 2024 these three companies are supposed to receive more units of this highly advanced machine.

This equipment will be necessary for semiconductor production beyond 3nm, but the fact that these companies use the same ASML machines to manufacture them is no guarantee at all that they will get the same performance for each wafer. They will not achieve the same competitiveness. TSMC will defend itself tooth and nail. We know this because during the conference IDM (International meeting on electronic devices), which was held just a few days ago in San Francisco, as expected What will your itinerary be? For the remainder of the contract. He is very ambitious.

The slide we publish below these lines outlines the milestones that TSMC hopes to achieve during the remainder of the decade. There are many very important achievements, but without a doubt the most impactful is the launch of the A10 (1nm) node in 2030, as well as the development of next-generation packaging technologies that should make possible the integration at the end of this decade billion transistors (our billion, not the Anglo-Saxons ) in a single integrated circuit.

To achieve these achievements, TSMC engineers will have to face many challenges, among which are the most notable Development of new materials. But who knows, maybe they will succeed. Whatever happens, we can be sure that strong emotions await us in the semiconductor field in the coming years. There is no doubt about that.

the pictures: TSMC

more information: Tom's devices

In Chataka: TSMC cannot produce 3nm chips and needs to address this in 2024. It has only one customer locked in: Apple