With all the brand new fabs being inbuilt Germany and Japan, in addition to the enlargement of manufacturing capability in China, TSMC is planning to increase its manufacturing capability for specialty applied sciences by 50% by 2027. As disclosed by the corporate throughout its European Expertise Symposium this week, TSMC expects to wish to not solely convert present capability to fulfill calls for for specialty processes, however even construct new (greenfield) fab house only for this function. One of many massive drivers for this demand, in flip, can be TSMC’s subsequent specialty node: N4e, a 4nm-class ultra-low-power manufacturing node.
“Prior to now, we at all times did the evaluate section [for upcoming fabs], however for the primary time in a very long time at TSMC, we began constructing greenfield fab that can handle the long run specialty know-how necessities,” mentioned Dr. Kevin Zhang, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Improvement and Abroad Operations Workplace, on the occasion. “Within the subsequent 4 to 5 years, we truly going to develop our specialty capability by as much as 1.5x. In doing so we truly increasing the footprint of our manufacturing community to enhance the resiliency of the general fab provide chain.”
On high of its well-known main logic nodes like N5 and N3E, TSMC additionally affords a collection of specialty nodes for functions corresponding to energy semiconductors, blended analog I/O, and ultra-low-power functions (e.g. IoT). These are usually primarily based on the corporate’s trailing manufacturing processes, however whatever the underlying know-how, the capability demand for these nodes is rising proper alongside the demand for TSMC’s main logic nodes. All of which has required TSMC to reevaluate how they go about planning for capability on their specialty nodes.
TSMC’s enlargement technique within the latest years has pursued a number of objectives. Certainly one of them has been to construct new fabs exterior of Taiwan; one other has been to typically increase manufacturing capability to fulfill future demand for every type of course of applied sciences – which is why the corporate is increase capability for specialty nodes.
At current, TSMC’s most superior specialty node is N6e, an N7/N6 variant that helps working voltages between 0.4V and 0.9V. With N4e, TSMC is voltages under 0.4V. Although for now, TSMC shouldn’t be disclosing a lot in the best way of technical particulars for the deliberate node; given the corporate’s historical past right here, we anticipate they will have extra to speak about subsequent yr as soon as the brand new course of is prepared.
