Designing chips for contemporary, modern manufacturing applied sciences is an costly endeavor. Nonetheless, dozens of firms have already adopted TSMCs N3 and N3E (3 nm-class) fabrication processes, in keeping with disclosures made by TSMC and Synopsys.
“Synopsys IP for TSMC’s 3nm course of has been adopted by dozens of main firms to speed up their improvement time, rapidly obtain silicon success and pace their time to market,” stated John Koeter, senior vp of promoting and technique for IP at Synopsys.
TSMC has been producing chips utilizing its newest N3 (aka N3B) fabrication expertise (with as much as 25 EUV layers and help for EUV double patterning) since late 2022 and intends to begin making merchandise on its simplified N3E manufacturing course of (with as much as 19 EUV layers and with out EUV double patterning) in This autumn 2023.
Beforehand, TSMC disclosed that its N3 nodes had been adopted by designers of high-performance computing (HPC) and smartphone SoCs and that the variety of adopters was larger in comparison with N5 early in its lifecycle. In the meantime, TSMC by no means talked about the variety of firms that had determined to make use of its 3 nm-class fabrication processes.
Synopsys is a serious IP developer and digital design automation instruments supplier, so it means rather a lot when it says that dozens of firms have licensed its IP for TSMC’s N3 fabrication applied sciences. However Synopsys isn’t the one IP designer on the market, and corporations like Cadence additionally equipped their N3-compatible IP to different fabless chip builders. It’s secure to say that the variety of their shoppers can be important.
TSMC’s N3 household of course of applied sciences consists of baseline N3 (N3B), relaxed N3E with a bit diminished transistor density however widened course of window for higher yields, performance-enhanced N3P that’s IP appropriate with N3E can be manufacturing prepared within the second half of 2024, and N3X for very high-performance functions which can be due in 2025.
The IP licensed by Synopsys proper now can be utilized for N3, N3E, and N3P manufacturing nodes.
Sources: Synopsys
