TSMC announces new 4nm chip manufacturing process

TSMC, the world’s most valuable semiconductor company, has announced the development of the 4nm node, an evolution of the current 5nm process. The new miniaturization technology will improve the performance and efficiency of the chips, like the 6nm node.

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is investing heavily to establish itself as the number one foundry in the world. The 5nm node has already entered mass production, to the point that a few weeks ago, there were rumors of possible development of the Ryzen 4000 on this process.

TSMC will switch to 4nm process in 2023

TSMC CEO Liu Deyin, at the company’s shareholders meeting, announced that the Taiwanese giant is working on its new ‘N4’ chipset based on the 4nm process. It will be a successor to the “N5P” 5nm EUV and is likely to go into mass production in 2023. Its advantage is that, despite improving performance and power consumption, the design between the two processes will be compatible, so customers can easily migrate.

The 4nm architecture will also allow companies to take advantage of more advanced lithography without changing the chipset design. We don’t know yet which companies could end up betting on such a manufacturing process. However, NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Apple, and other TSMC customers may well consider it for their future designs.

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TSMC confirms plan to build a dedicated 5nm chip plant in the United States

The company has also completed the 3nm process design framework. And the 3nm chipset is expected to go into production for testing in the first half of 2021. The Taiwanese giant is also accelerating the development of the 2nm process. Moreover, TSMC will even start the mass-production of the first-generation 5nm chips in the fourth quarter of this year.

It is worth noting that despite these good trails, the company is still facing a huge complication from the Trump administration with the Huawei‘s ban to chip manufacturers, including TSMC. If this scenario stays put, the firm will lose one of its most important commercial partners, Huawei. That is responsible for 15-20% of the company’s annual revenue, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

Therefore, it appears that the USA and China’s trade war situation is still far from the end credits. And TSMC could get significantly affected by this. At the moment, the company is in talks with the American government to build a 5nm factory in Arizona. Within a larger plan to make the United States independent of the East.

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