TSMC already building world's first 3 nm facility in Taiwan

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) announced last year that its facilities will be ready to roll out the first 5 nm chips as early as 2020. The schedule appears to be consistent with upcoming CPU releases, since Intel is planning to launch 10 nm chips in 2018, and AMD could be launching the first 7 nm CPU in late 2018 / early 2019. However, it looks like TSMC is already building the world’s first 3 nm plant, which should be operational by 2022.

In a DigiTimes interview, TSMC chairman Morris Chang confirmed that a new 3 nm facility is being built in Taiwan and that this move will “fully leverage the company's existing cluster advantage and the benefit of a comprehensive supply chain”. Due to an unexpected commitment form the Taiwanese government that is willing to resolve any environment issues, the 5 nm facilities are now scheduled to start risk production in the second quarter of 2019. TSMC is also expecting that the 3 nm facilities could start production sooner than 2022, in light of the Taiwanese government actions.

TSMC will keep using the FinFET (Fin Field-Effect Transistor) production process for the 5 nm facilities, while the 3 nm chips could be manufactured with the GAAFET (“Gate all around” Field-Effect Transistor) that will also be used by IBM and GlobalFoundries in their 5 nm chips.

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