Taiwanese media: TSMC's 5nm wafer costs nearly $17,000 per piece

According to digitimes, a report from the US think tank CSET shows that a 12-inch wafer manufactured at a 5nm node costs about $16,988, much higher than the $9,346 cost of the same specification manufactured at a 7nm node. If a 600 square millimeter grain is used (approximately the same size as the GA102 GPU used by NVIDIA RTX 3080 and 3090), the cost of each chip at the 7nm and 5nm nodes is approximately $233 and $238, respectively.

Tech Spot reported that in addition to the fact that 5nm chips are new products, another important reason for their higher cost is that they require special processing. 5nm chips rely heavily on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology. Each EUV machine costs $120 million. The expensive equipment has pushed up the cost, and each 5nm wafer may require more than 14 layers of EUV masks.

According to official data, compared with 7nm (first generation DUV), 5nm chips can provide 1.8 times the logic density, 15% faster speed, or 30% lower power consumption. And the 5nm node is also said to have a better yield. Based on these advantages, despite the high cost of TSMC's 5nm chips, the market demand is still strong.

The supply chain previously revealed that AMD, Nvidia, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Apple are about to usher in the peak season for shipments and have gradually increased their 5nm orders. TSMC's 5nm production capacity is currently gradually increasing from 50,000 pieces per month. The original monthly production capacity target of 80,000 to 90,000 pieces in the first half of 2021 has been raised to 105,000 pieces recently.

According to digitimes, a report from the US think tank CSET shows that a 12-inch wafer manufactured at a 5nm node costs about $16,988, much higher than the $9,346 cost of the same specification manufactured at a 7nm node. If a 600 square millimeter grain is used (approximately the same size as the GA102 GPU used by NVIDIA RTX 3080 and 3090), the cost of each chip at the 7nm and 5nm nodes is approximately $233 and $238, respectively.

Tech Spot reported that in addition to the fact that 5nm chips are new products, another important reason for their higher cost is that they require special processing. 5nm chips rely heavily on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology. Each EUV machine costs $120 million. The expensive equipment has pushed up the cost, and each 5nm wafer may require more than 14 layers of EUV masks.

According to official data, compared with 7nm (first generation DUV), 5nm chips can provide 1.8 times the logic density, 15% faster speed, or 30% lower power consumption. And the 5nm node is also said to have a better yield. Based on these advantages, despite the high cost of TSMC's 5nm chips, the market demand is still strong.

The supply chain previously revealed that AMD, Nvidia, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Apple are about to usher in the peak season for shipments and have gradually increased their 5nm orders. TSMC's 5nm production capacity is currently gradually increasing from 50,000 pieces per month. The original monthly production capacity target of 80,000 to 90,000 pieces in the first half of 2021 has been raised to 105,000 pieces recently.