TSMC works on 3nm process
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is having lithography tool troubles with the new chip process that is being used to fabricate the next generation of Apple processors.
It was rumored that Apple had ordered the whole production run of 3nm processors from TSMC as far back as December 2020. At the time, it was anticipated that Apple would use the processors throughout the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
“While the high cost of EUV multi-patterning has made the cost/benefit of EUV unattractive, loosening the design rules to minimize the number of EUV multi-patterning layers has led to a much higher die size,” analyst Mehdi Hosseini said. “The ‘real’ 3-nm node will not scale until a higher-throughput EUV system, ASML’s NXE:3800E, is available during the second half of 2023.”
TSMC will start increasing production of Apple’s A17 and M3 processors on the N3 node in the second half of 2023. For the iPhone A17 chip, TSMC will do 82 mask layers with a die size likely in the 100-110mm square range.
