A closer look at TSMC's 3-nm node and FinFlex technology

By Majeed Ahmad, EDN (August 22, 2022)

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is on track to launch the much-awaited 3-nm process node in September, according to media reports in Taiwan, and Apple will be its first 3-nm customer, incorporating its TSMC-manufactured M2 Pro processor in Mac machines to be unveiled later this year. According to reports published in DigiTimes, other semiconductor suppliers committing to manufacture their chips at TSMC’s 3-nm node include AMD, Broadcom, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.

That shows a strong edge over Samsung Foundry, which came into the limelight earlier this year when it claimed to mass produce 3-nm processors. However, Samsung foundry’s only notable customer besides its own Exynos processors is known to be Qualcomm’s Snapdragon smartphone processor, which is competing directly with Samsung’s Exynos smartphone processor.

Moreover, unlike Samsung moving to the new gate-all-along (GAA) technology for its 3-nm node, TSMC decided to stay with the FinFET technology at the 3-nm fabrication process and instead move to GAA for its upcoming 2-nm process. The GAA fabrication technology bolsters chip performance with its high electrical conductivity.

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