You know, the signs have been there. At Computex AMD mentioned having working samples of 7nm chips, meaning things are progressing faster than expected. Much like moving 14nm towards 12nm there, however, is more behind the horizon, and TSMC just made it clear, 5nm wafer and chip fabrication will start in mass production at the end of 2019.
TSMC is going big and is investing 21 Billion (Yeah my head just shook a little) Euros into 5nm production. Meaning, after 7nm, this is the next big … well, small thing. TSMC also mentioned that they are ramping up 7nm production, once again confirming that the industry is properly on track with 7nm as well. TSMC shared their updates on its plans at a product meeting in Taiwan, DigiTimes reports.
TSMC will start production of their first 5nm sampling chips in the first half of 2019. By the end of 2019 or the beginning of 2020, mass production will follow. To make all this possible, the company invests around 21.5 billion euros in Fab 18, which is situated at the production facility in the Taiwan Science Park. TSMC wants to use the same facility for, wait for it … 3nm production.
As far as 7nm goes, which now sounds big in comparison, TSMC will tape out more than 50 chip designs with its 7nm process technology by the end of 2018. The early batches are intended for IA chips, GPUs and cryptocurrency applications. These are the big three that take up the majority of the tape-outs, followed by 5G and application processors. TSMC will also start taping out chips built using an enhanced 7nm node with EUV in the second half of 2018. So that’s gen2 7nm already.
As for TSMC’s 5nm node, risk production is scheduled to kick off in the first half of 2019, followed by mass production at the end of the year or the beginning of 2020. Exciting times are ahead of us you guys.
