TSMC shares six key points: 2nm will arrive in 2025

TSMC’s 2022 Taiwan Technology Forum kicked off today with President Wei Zhejia’s speech on “New World, New Opportunities”.

Wei Zhejia not only shared three major changes in the semiconductor industry, but also explained the progress of TSMC's advanced manufacturing processes and the differences from competitors. He emphasized that TSMC does not have its own products, and customers do not have to worry about TSMC stealing your designs. Only when customers succeed can TSMC succeed. The following are the 6 key highlights of the TSMC Technology Forum.

TSMC President Wei Zhejia said yesterday that the semiconductor content of mature and advanced processes continues to increase, and transistor shrinkage alone can no longer meet product requirements. In addition, in the past, it pursued globalization, but now it has turned to regionalization for security strategic considerations. In other words, a global The era of highly efficient supply systems has passed, and costs will increase rapidly.

Wei Zhejia said that without scientific and technological progress, everyone might still stay at home and tremble because they don't know how harmful the virus is to humans. He said that scientific and technological progress is created jointly by everyone.

He shared 3 changes he observed:

The first change is that it is no longer enough to improve the performance of transistor drive technology alone. 3D ICs must be communicated with the outside world in a stacking manner.

The second change is that the semiconductor content of various products has been increasing. Wei Zhejia said that the demand for advanced processes and mature processes is increasing, and technology is also advancing, and they are all equally important.

He gave an example. When people from Ford were chatting with each other, they asked them that we have provided a large amount of production capacity to you in the past few years, but you all said that it is not enough and more is needed. Where is this used? They said this is because the silicon content increases by 15% every year, and the F1 series also sells well.

He also pointed out that in the past we thought that advanced processes required more investment, but now mature processes also require more investment because of continuous advancements in CMOS, RF and other technologies.

Wei Zhejia also pointed out humorously, "We need to build a new FAB because of customer needs. But do you know how much it costs to build a factory? If anyone wants to build one, please let us know."

The third change is that the supply chain is an important factor. Wei Zhejia said that this involves geopolitics. He said that in the past, we talked about globalization for the sake of security, but now we talk about regionalization. The governments of the United States, Japan, Europe and mainland China welcome manufacturers to set up factories there. The era of a globalized and efficient supply system has passed, and all costs will increase rapidly. , will work closely with customers to reduce risks.

For example, Wei Zhejia said that the first time he heard of an error in the automotive supply chain was because they were not prepared to pay attention to the design of everyone present until a problem occurred. He also said humorously, "I can't leak the secret, but do you know how much it costs to buy an EUV? But they only lack 10 yuan of chips."

Wei Zhejia also mentioned that geopolitical issues include the transformation from globalization to localization in the past, which will increase costs. At present, every government has said that it hopes that factories will come to them, including the United States, Japan, the European Union, mainland China, etc., but "not including Taiwan, China." . The words caused bursts of laughter in the audience, but Wei Zhejia also said humorously, "Don't listen too carefully." Outsiders have interpreted that most of TSMC's current production capacity is concentrated in Taiwan, China, and is still expanding. Advanced process R&D and production are also in Taiwan, China.

Wei Zhejia, president of TSMC, the leading wafer foundry, said yesterday at the TSMC Annual Technology Forum that TSMC itself has a large IC design team, but its biggest feature is that it does not produce its own products, nor does it compete with customers. He emphasized that the success of TSMC must come first from the success of its customers. He suddenly said, "Except for TSMC, which foundry dares to say that it does not compete with its customers." He said that competitors have their own products. , but also to accept OEM orders. Will customers feel at ease when placing orders?

As for earlier competitor Samsung, which announced at the end of June that it had successfully mass-produced 3-nanometer products with gate surround (GAA), Wei Zhejia also emphasized that his company is the real global leader. He said that 3-nanometer technology is indeed difficult, but TSMC has successfully overcome it, and will soon be mass-produced (the supply chain revealed that it will be officially produced in September), and customers are quite enthusiastic about adoption, and the initial production capacity is even insufficient.

When MediaTek Deputy General Manager Xu Jingquan shared with customers the mass production of the flagship mobile phone Dimensity 9000 using TSMC's 4-nanometer process, the chip performance in the briefing was only 2%. Wei Zhejia joked to himself: "I almost lost my temper when I saw this number.

Chair falls! I think it should be 20%, which is a 0 less, but then he did not forget to show his superior business capabilities and persuaded Xu Jingquan to "please use 3 nanometers", the efficiency will be better.

Wei Zhejia said that TSMC currently has 2,000 chip designers, which is enough to design its own chips. However, TSMC promises that it will never produce its own chips, and its cooperation with each customer will be unique, and it will never compete with customers. "TSMC will succeed only after customers succeed, and there will be no such situation of success at the same time." , these competitors cannot guarantee it.”

"I don't believe that my competitors can say this. To put it bluntly, for our competitors, whether you succeed or not, they can still get their own products," he said with a smile.

TSMC's 5-nanometer mass production has entered its third year, with a cumulative production of 2 million pieces. No company has more than TSMC. No company even has more than half of TSMC's volume, and technology is improving every year. Now the 5-nanometer family members also include 4 nanometer, N4P nanometer, and N4X nanometer.

In addition, 3nm is about to be mass-produced and will be the best technology. The opponent's 3nm is still lagging behind TSMC's 4nm; TSMC's upgraded version of 3nm (N3E) will be mass-produced in the second half of 2023. As for the rumors that TSMC's 3-nanometer process N3 will be canceled and directly transferred to N3E, Wei Zhejia's public speech yesterday shattered the external rumors, showing that TSMC's 3-nanometer family mass production will still proceed as planned in the second half of this year.

In his speech, Wei Zhejia emphasized that TSMC's 3-nanometer technology is about to be mass-produced and has been thinking about maintaining the FinFET architecture for a long time. "The process technology not only looks good and sounds good, but is also practical." Although he did not name his competitors, the outside world interpreted the relevant remarks as an insinuation of Samsung, which had previously hyped up the mass production of 3 nanometers.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, senior vice president of business development at TSMC, pointed out that TSMC will mass-produce 3-nanometer N3 this year as planned, and plans to mass-produce N3E in the second half of next year. As for N3P and other plans for the next year, they are all based on comprehensive considerations of market demand and will be launched at 3 nanometers. The innovative "TSMC FINFLEX" architecture allows customers to have more diverse choices.

TSMC’s 2nm adopts a nanosheet architecture and plans to mass-produce it in 2025. Compared with N3E, at the same power, the speed is increased by 10% to 15%; at the same speed, the power consumption is reduced by 25% to 30%.

Wei Zhejia assured that TSMC's 2-nanometer process will be mass-produced in 2025 and "will be the most advanced and best technology."

Special technologies are widely used in fields such as radio frequency, microcontrollers (MCUs), image sensors, power management chips and displays. In recent years, TSMC's special process investment has grown at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 44%, and its 12-inch special process production capacity will increase by 12% from 2021 to 2022.

In recent years, TSMC has continued to be the leader in capital expenditures, but most of them focus on advanced processes, with relatively few expansion plans for mature and special nodes. But TSMC has not given up on this part. As outlined in the TSMC technical seminar, it is investing in four plans for mature and professional nodes:

• The first phase of Fab 23 in Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan, will use TSMC's N12, N16, N22 and N28 nodes to produce chips. It will have a monthly production capacity of up to 45,000 12-inch wafers.

• Fab 14, Tainan, Taiwan, China, Issue 8.

• Kaohsiung, Taiwan, China Fab 22 Phase 2.

• Fab 16 Phase 1B in Nanjing, China, TSMC locally produces N28 node process chips. However, there are rumors that the new stage of production capacity will use more advanced nodes to produce chips.

It is expected to increase mature and special node production capacity by 50% within three years, which is a major change for TSMC and will improve TSMC's competitive advantage. While maturing and expanding production of special node processes, it is also actively developing a general IP mechanism to allow some companies to reuse IP previously developed for computing or RF.

The advantage of the general IP mechanism is TSMC's N6RF process, which allows chip designers to combine high-performance logic chips with RF radio frequencies to build products such as baseband chips or other more special solutions. Many customers are familiar with TSMC's N6 node process, which gives them more opportunities to integrate RF functions into other high-performance products. GlobalFoundries has a similar approach.

最后，凭著成熟和特殊节点通用IP 平台机制，将增加50% 产能，台积电几年内为全球提供更多智能装置芯片，还将显著增加成熟和特殊节点营收，以及给竞争对手压力。

Advanced packaging production capacity in 2022 will be three times larger than in 2018. SoIC chip stacking manufacturing will begin in 2022, and it is planned to expand production capacity to more than 20 times in 2026.

Zhunan has the first 3D Fabric fully automated factory, which integrates advanced testing and SoIC and InFO/CoWoS operations. SoIC production will begin in the second half of 2022, and 3D Fabric will be fully operational in 2023.

TSMC announced two breakthrough innovations in its advanced packaging technology platform TSMC-3DFabric three-dimensional (3D) silicon stacking solution.

The first is to complete the world's first central processor based on the application system integrated chip stack (TSMC-SoICTM). Chip-on-Wafer (CoW) technology is used to stack three-level cache static random access memory.

The second step is to use Wafer-on-Wafer (WoW) technology to stack the deep trench capacitor chip.

TSMC also announced that it has adopted CoW and WoW advanced packaging to support 7-nanometer chips that have been mass-produced. Advanced packaging technology support to support 5-nanometer (N5) is expected to be completed in 2023.

In order to meet customer needs for system integration chips and other TSMC 3D Fabric system integration services, TSMC has built the world's first fully automated 3D Fabric advanced packaging factory in Zhunan, with production expected to begin in the second half of this year.

Phases 5 to 9 of TSMC Nanke Wafer Factory 18 are 3-nanometer manufacturing bases; Hsinchu Wafer Factory 20 is currently being prepared and will be a 2-nanometer production base in the future. Kaohsiung Wafer Factory 22 is expected to start construction in the second half of this year and mass-produce 7nm and 28nm in 2024.

In terms of overseas factories, TSMC's Arizona plant in the United States will mass produce 5 nanometers in 2024; China's Nanjing plant's new 28 nanometer plant will mass produce in the fourth quarter of this year; Japan's Kumamoto plant will mass produce 12/16 nanometer and 28 nanometer family technologies in 2024.

Wang Yinglang, deputy general manager of TSMC's wafer fab operations, said that in order to meet market demand, TSMC's construction speed of wafer fabs has increased from two per year from 2017 to 2019 to six per year from 2020 to 2022. This has enabled TSMC's 7, 5, and 3 nanometer production capacity in advanced processes to increase at a compound growth rate of 70% from 2018 to 2022. Among them, 5-nanometer production capacity will be four times the scale of two years ago. Moreover, special process production capacity will be expanded simultaneously, and the 12-inch special process production capacity will increase by 14% from 2021 to 2022. In this way, TSMC will become everyone's most trusted provider of technology and production capacity.

Wang Yinglang said at the 2022 TSMC Technology Forum Taipei meeting that TSMC continues to improve productivity and maximize output through innovation in intelligent manufacturing. "As a company, TSMC is committed to providing the right capacity at the right time. This is the foundation of our customer-centricity." On this basis, TSMC's capital expenditures have more than doubled in the past three years, and It will increase from less than US$15 billion in 2019 to US$30 billion in 2021, and then to approximately US$40 billion in 2022 to build production capacity for advanced processes, mature processes and 3DFabric.

Wang Yinglang also emphasized that TSMC has an excellent record of rapidly expanding production capacity and does its best to support customers' business growth. In order to improve the resilience of the supply chain, TSMC continues to expand its global presence in Arizona, the United States, Kumamoto, Japan, Nanjing, China, and Taiwan, China. Among them, a wafer fab in Arizona, USA, is under construction and is expected to mass-produce a 5-nanometer process in 2024. Phases 5 to 9 of Tainan Wafer Fab 18 are currently under construction and will be a 3-nanometer production base in the future. In addition, TSMC is preparing for Hsinchu Wafer Factory 20, which will be a 2-nanometer production base in the future. It also plans to build Wafer Factory 22 in Kaohsiung to expand 7-nanometer and 28-nanometer production capacity.

As for Japan, TSMC is expanding its factory in Kumamoto to provide wafer manufacturing services for 12/16nm and 28nm family technologies to meet the strong demand for special processes in the global market. Construction of the fab is underway and mass production is expected to begin in 2024. Through the above capacity expansion, TSMC is expected to increase its special process production capacity by nearly 50% in 2025.

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