According to Taiwan Economic Daily, TSMC President Wei Zhejia previously announced that the promise of “3nm mass production in Taiwan within this year” will be fulfilled soon. On December 23, TSMC issued an invitation to the event, and next week (December 29) will hold a 3nm mass production and factory expansion ceremony in Nanke. Wei Zhejia mentions at the legal meeting in October this year that the progress of 3nm is good. He claims that it has a good yield rate and will be mass-produced in the fourth quarter. Driven by high-speed computing and mobile phone applications, customers are demanding 3nm. At the moment, the nano demand exceeds capacity.
Prior to this, Wei Zhejia also stated on the technical forum that TSMC’s 3nm “has unspeakable difficulties”. However, he claims that it will soon be mass-produced and maintain the fin field effect transistor (FinFET) structure. This is mainly because the process tech “not only looks good but also sounds good”.
Gizchina News of the week
TSMC has repeatedly announced that it will mass-produce 3nm in Nanke this year. Nanke Wafer Facility 18 is the main production base of the 3nm process. The 3nm process tech will be another full-generation process after the 5nm (N5) process tech. The 3nm family includes multiple combinations. This year, 3nm will be mass-produced while the company’s plan for next year is mass production of N3E. After next year, it will produce N3P.
Samsung has 3nm chips already
Back in July, Samsung Electronics announced that it has started mass production of 3nm chips for some customers in the high-performance computing segment, ahead of TSMC. First, as the Nikkei Asian Review explains, Samsung’s decision to start manufacturing 3nm chips at the Hwaseong facility, which traditionally debugs and masters new lithography, suggests that production volumes will not be very large. Secondly, the first recipients of Samsung 3nm chips will be Chinese brands of specialized accelerators for cryptocurrency mining.
