Taiwanese chip maker, TSMC, is the largest and most advanced in the world. While most foundries are trying to overcome the 7nm 04 even 14nm processes, it is already taking about 2nm process. At the opening of TSMC’s technology forum, the company officially announced its 5nm, 4nm, and 3nm processes. Interestingly, the company had something to say about its 2nm process. According to TSMC, it is building a new R&D center for its 2nm process. This center will have about 8000 engineers to look into the development of TSMC’s 2nm process.
However, the company did not announce the exact location of the R&D center. Nevertheless, there are reports that it could be in the Nanke Industrial Park. Recall that TSMC recently purchased the polarized light plant at a price of NT$ 3.65 billion ($125 million) to build a new production plant. At the time of the purchase, TSMC did not specify that this plant is for the 2nm R&D center.
Due to the huge increase in orders, TSMC has invested tens of billions of New Taiwan dollars in purchasing land to expand production capacity this year. These investments are necessary for the development of the new manufacturing process.
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At present, whether Samsung or TSMC, the semiconductor process is at the 3nm level. The 3nm research and development are basically complete. All that is left is to build a factory for mass production. This will not take as much time as the research and development phase. However, this will depend on the availability of investment.
The 2nm process is an important iteration after 3nm. Unlike Samsung’s aggressive choice to introduce the GAA surround gate process at the 3nm node, TSMC is more conservative. The Taiwanese will only introduce the GAA process at the 2nm node. Thus, the 2nm node is very important for TSMC because it is a huge technology upgrade.
TSMC previously mentioned that the 2nm process technology has been successfully developed and has made major breakthroughs and successfully found a path to the GAA process. However, at present, the research and development of the 2nm process are far from over. TSMC is just beginning and still needs to invest a lot of resources. These more than 8,000 engineers are one of the necessary conditions, which also demonstrates TSMC’s determination to maintain its leading edge in technology in the future.
