TSMC's 3-nanometer advanced process layout overview
inflation has caused global demand for smartphones and laptops to be frozen, impacting the inventory sales of chip production chain may continue until the second quarter next year. The industry has a consensus that the semiconductor market will fall into recession next year. But for TSMC, the capacity utilization rate of 7 nanometers and 6 nanometers of will decline in the first half of next year. Fortunately, the new capacity of 3 nanometers of is gradually released, and the number of chip designs has increased, it will become the main driving force for TSMC to continue to grow next year.
legal person said that although TSMC reduced its capital expenditure this year to US$36 billion, it mainly delayed the expansion of production of 7 nanometers, and "the construction and mass production schedule of 3 nanometers of new production capacity remains the original plan." As the 3-nanometer production capacity is launched quarter by quarter next year, major customers including Apple , Intel , Qualcomm will also introduce mass production, which will become the main driving force for TSMC's revenue growth in 2023 compared to this year.
TSMC recently reiterated that the progress of the 3-nanometer N3 process meets expectations and has good yields. It will be mass-produced later in the fourth quarter. Driven by high-performance computing (HPC) and smart phone applications, it is expected to be mass-produced smoothly in 2023. Because customers' demand for the N3 process exceeds production capacity, partly due to the ongoing machine delivery problems, TSMC expects that the N3 process will be fully utilized next year. Compared with the revenue contribution of the 5-nanometer N5 process in the first year of mass production in 2020, TSMC expects that the revenue contribution of the N3 process will be higher in 2023. Since TSMC's overall revenue base this year and next year is already larger than in 2020, the N3 process is expected to account for 4% to 6% of the revenue of wafer next year.
industry pointed out that the miniaturization of advanced processes has slowed down. In addition to the manufacturing cost of 3 nanometers is significantly greater than 5 nanometers, the process complexity and yield problems have also led to a slowdown in the advancement process. TSMC pointed out that customers no longer value the cost of transistor , and system efficiency and energy efficiency have also become the key motivation for customers to adopt advanced process technology.
TSMC N3 Process Enhanced Edition N3E Process, due to its better performance, power consumption and yield, it will provide a complete support platform for smart phones and HPC applications. TSMC said that the progress of N3E technology development is ahead of schedule and is expected to be mass-produced in the second half of next year. Although inventory adjustments continue, N3 and N3E have many customers involved, and the number of product designs for the first and second years of mass production will be more than twice that of N5.
