TSMC has started 2nm process research and development, which will be available in 2024

　　At the Science and Technology Innovation Forum, TSMC's head of R&D and vice general manager of technology research, Huang Hansen, not only discussed the possibility of extending the semiconductor process to 0.1nm in the future, but also announced an important news - TSMC has started the research and development of 2nm process, which is expected to be released in four years.

　　In TSMC's current process planning, the 7nm process was put into mass production last year, and the 7nm+ process introduced EUV extreme ultraviolet lithography technology for the first time and has now been put into mass production;

　　6nm is just an upgraded version of 7nm, which will be put into trial production in the first quarter of next year;

　　5nm has fully introduced EUV extreme ultraviolet lithography and has started risk trial production. It will be mass-produced before the end of next year. Apple A14 and AMD's fifth-generation Ryzen (Zen 4) are expected to adopt it, and there will be an enhanced version of the N5P process afterwards.

　　3nm is expected to start trial production in 2021 and mass production in 2022.

　　After 3nm, we will enter the 2nm process. In fact, TSMC announced the development of 2nm process in June this year. The factory is located in the Southern Science Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and is expected to be put into production in 2024.

　　According to the indicators given by TSMC, the 2nm process is an important node. The Metal Track (metal unit height) is maintained at 5x like 3nm. At the same time, the Gate Pitch (transistor gate spacing) is reduced to 30nm, and the Metal Pitch (metal spacing) is reduced to 20nm, which is 23% smaller than 3nm.

　　However, TSMC did not disclose the technology and materials required for the 2nm process, let alone indicators such as performance and power consumption.