As Moore’s law dies a slow and painful death, chip foundries are scrambling to design the densest and most efficient process nodes. Among them, TSMC is undoubtedly at the top of the food chain. The firm’s 7nm process present powers the fastest PC and mobile chips from AMD, Apple and Huawei, with 5nm presently in mass production.
While Intel struggles to mass-produce its 10nm chips, TSMC is currently finalizing its future nodes, namely the 3nm and 2nm designs. According to Taiwanese media, TSMC has had a major breakthrough in the development of the 2nm process utilizing the GAA (gate-all-around) technology.
Earlier, Samsung had announced that it would beat the foundry by introducing GAA with its 3nm node and thereby surpass TSMC by 2020 as the leading chipmaker.
Looking at the latest reports though, it seems like that won’t happen. While TSMC’s 3nm process will still use the FinFET (fin field effect transistor) technology, 2nm is expected to leverage GAA with mass production slated between 2023 and 2023.
The 3nm process, on the other hand, will be trial produced in 2021, with mass production planned for 2022.
