At last week's statement meeting, TSMC announced that its capital expenditure in 2020 is US$15 billion to US$16 billion, of which 80% will be invested in advanced production capacity expansion, including 7nm, 5nm and 3nm. At this statement meeting, TSMC did not announce the situation of the 3nm process, because they will have a special press conference in April, the details of the 3nm process will be disclosed.
What route will TSMC's 3nm process technology ultimately choose? It is very important for the semiconductor industry, because currently only TSMC and Samsung can penetrate the 3nm node. Among them, Samsung announced the 3nm process last year, and it will clearly abandon FinFET transistor and turn to GAA surround gate transistor technology.
Specifically, Samsung's 3nm process is divided into 3GAE and 3GAP, the latter has better performance, but the first generation of GAA transistor process 3GAE is launched. According to the official statement, based on the new GAA transistor structure, Samsung has created an MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET, multi-bridge-channel field effect transistor ) by using nanosheet devices. This technology can significantly enhance transistor performance and mainly replace FinFET transistor technology.
In addition, MBCFET technology is also compatible with existing FinFET manufacturing processes technologies and equipment, thereby accelerating process development and production.
At the 2019 Japan SFF conference, Samsung also announced specific indicators for the 3nm process. Compared with the current 7nm process, the 3nm process can reduce the core area by 45%, reduce power consumption by 50%, and improve performance by 35%.
Samsung plans to invest US$116 billion by 2030 to build a semiconductor kingdom. Since it lags behind TSMC in both 7nm and 5nm nodes, Samsung bets on the 3nm node, hoping to surpass TSMC in this node and become the largest wafer foundry. Therefore, Samsung has high hopes for the 3GAE process and will be mass-produced as soon as 2021.
As for TSMC, they have also invested heavily in the 3nm node. Last year, they announced that they would spend US$19.5 billion to build a 3nm factory, and will officially start construction in 2020. However, technical details have not been disclosed, especially whether TSMC will choose GAA transistors like Samsung or continue to improve FinFET transistors. These two technical routes will affect the choice of many high-end chips in the future.
