TSMC’s 5nm Mass Production Goes Smoothly: It Can Get Revenue This Year

The current flagship mobile chips are based on a 7nm process node. But this won’t last long. It can even change this year. As you guess, TSMC will be one of the pioneers, coming with a new manufacturing process, 5nm.

TSMC’s progress in chip manufacturing is quite good. Not only was it the first to achieve mass production at 7nm, but 5nm was also immediately mass-produced and commercialized. Regarding TSMC’s 5nm progress, TSMC CEO Wei Zhejia revealed some interesting information during a conference call with financial analysts.

Wei Zhejia said that TSMC currently does not mass-produce 5nm chips. But it has been developed for many years and has already been in trial production. At present, the 5nm process is progressing very smoothly. So there is every reason to think the large-scale mass production will be achieved in the first half of this year. The production capacity will be significantly improved in the second half of the year.

Compared with the 7nm process, 5nm has increased the transistor density by 80% and the speed by 20%. Of course, these data are theoretical values.

Well, it’s also assumed the 5nm chips launched this year will bring 10% of TSMC’s revenue. If nothing else, the first chip using TSMC 5nm will be Apple’s A14.

Like the 7nm process that was mass-produced in 2018 and became the main source of revenue last year, TSMC will continue to improve the 5nm process in the future, which will be the main process technology in the future. Wei Zhejia revealed at the meeting that they will continue to improve chip performance, energy consumption, and transistor density through 5nm process solutions. The company is confident that 5nm will be another large and long-term process for TSMC.