According to reports, TSMC and Samsung have encountered different but critical bottlenecks in the development of 3nm process technology. As a result, TSMC and Samsung will have to postpone the development progress of the 3nm process technology. However, TSMC still plans that this year the 3nm process will be completed trial production, and is expected to be put into production in 2022 batch.
Samsung is using the “GAAFET” architecture, the industry believes that it can more accurately control the current across the channel, and effectively reduce the chip area to reduce power consumption. TSMC is using a more mature “FinFET” architecture for its 3nm process.
As of now, there are reports that Apple has taken a large portion of TSMC’s 3nm process orders, meaning that Apple will be one of the first customers for TSMC’s 3nm process. If the 3nm process delayed shipments, 5nm chips will remain in the market for a longer period of time
Samsung and TSMC are both expected to mass produce 3nm process chips in 2022, but TSMC will ship earlier than half a year. TSMC said that compared to 5nm chips, 3nm performance will improve by about 10-15%, and can save 20%-25% of energy consumption.
TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin has previously said that TSMC’s revenue will continue to reach new highs this year, and their cumulative investment in the 3nm chip factory in Nanke has exceeded NTD two trillion (about 464.6 billion yuan). Samsung, a competitor, is also ready to invest $116 billion, betting that it will close the gap with TSMC in two years.
As usual, the first generation 3nm chip is named A16 Bionic and will be used within iPhone 14 (tentative name).
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