TSMC to start 5nm test production in April with up to 14 layers of EUV

TSMC will have its facilities ready for risk production at 5nm in April next year, and the company will then use EUV technology for up to fourteen layers. The switch could provide 17.7 percent faster chips.

It concerns risk production, which means it can take up to a year before mass production of chips starts. TSMC itself previously expected this to be the case at the end of 2019, early 2020. Based on tests with Arm A72 cores, TSMC concludes that the 5nm node can provide 14.7 to 17.7 percent faster speeds and decrease the chip area by a factor of 1.8 compared to the 7nm node.

According to EETimes, the Taiwanese chip company has also completed the first tape out of a 7nm + chip for a customer. The 7nm+ process is TSMC’s successor to the current 7nm manufacturing process, which produces chips for Apple’s A12 Bionic and Huawei’s Kirin 980, among others. Compared to 7nm, 7nm+ causes a decrease in consumption of 6 to 12 percent, but it is not known what the speed improvements can be.

TSMC uses euv for both 7nm+ and 5nm, but with 7nm+ that is only for four layers and for 5nm already for fourteen layers of the chip production. At the same time, costs are rising sharply, according to a source from the EETimes. The total cost for a 7nm design would currently be $150 million, but would rise to $200-250 million at 5nm. Ultimately, those costs should fall because euv requires fewer masks, which cost a lot of money.

TSMC seems to be the most advanced of the chip companies with its euv integration, although Samsung also uses euv for its 7nm node. However, Intel is taking a wait and see approach and GlobalFoundries has completely stopped developing both 7nm and euv. The euv machines of the Veldhoven company ASML use extreme ultraviolet light to apply small patterns with a single exposure. This saves time and should yield better results than multipatterning in the current immersion lithography process. Euv can initially be used for a few chip layers, but as the technology is improved it should be possible to use it for more layers.