Half a year after Samsung announced mass production of the 3nm GAA process, on December 29, 2022, TSMC, the leading wafer foundry, officially held a 3nm (N3) mass production and expansion ceremony at the new construction base of Wafer 18 in the Southern Science Park, announcing that Its 3nm is officially mass-produced. However, TSMC did not announce its 3nm yield rate, only saying that its current 3nm yield rate is comparable to that of 5nm mass production in the same period.
According to estimates by analysts and experts specializing in semiconductors interviewed by Business Next, TSMC’s current 3nm yield rate may be as low as 60% to 70%, or as high as 75% to 80%, which is for the 3nm process that has just been mass-produced. is pretty good. At the same time, financial analyst Dan Nystedt also said on Twitter that TSMC’s current 3nm yield rate is similar to that of 5nm yield rate in the early stages of its rise, and according to media reports, its yield rate may be as high as 80%.
In contrast, previous reports showed that the yield rate of Samsung’s foundry business in the early stage of 3nm (3GAE) was only 10% to 20%, and there was no significant improvement. Of course, Samsung’s 3nm is based on the new GAA architecture, while TSMC is still based on FinFet technology, which is more difficult than the former.
The news pointed out that the reason why Qualcomm and MediaTek are hesitant to adopt TSMC 3nm is because of the extremely high cost. Starting from the 10nm process, TSMC’s sales price per wafer began to increase exponentially. When TSMC launched the 7nm process in 2018, the wafer price jumped to nearly $10,000. In 2020, the 5nm wafer price exceeded $16,000.
TSMC’s 3nm sales price per wafer exceeds $20,000, which is still the benchmark price. If the manufacturer’s order volume fails to meet TSMC’s requirements, the price will rise sharply. This is one of the important reasons why Qualcomm and MediaTek are hesitant to use TSMC’s 3nm.
One question you might have is how does TSMC’s 3nm process compare to Samsung’s 3nm process. TSMC is still using FinFET technology, while Samsung has transitioned to GAA – they call it multi-bridge HNS.
According to calculations, at the 5nm process node, TSMC’s densest logic cell density is 1.30 times that of Samsung’s densest logic cell density. If you look at the TSMC density values in Figure 6, the 2-2 fin cell is 1.39 times denser than the 2-2 fin cell in 5nm, and the 2-1 cell is 1.56 times denser. Samsung has two versions of 3nm, the SF3E (3GAE) version is 1.19 times denser than 5nm, and the SF3 (3GAP) version is 1.35 times denser than 5nm, falling further behind TSMC’s industry-leading density. I also believe TSMC has better performance and slightly better power at 3nm, although Samsung may have closed the power gap due to the HNS process.
Counting TSMC’s global layout in recent years, it announced the establishment of a factory in Nanjing in 2015, the official start of construction of the Nanjing factory in 2016, and a mass production ceremony in 2018. After two years, TSMC once again announced in 2020 that it will build a new 5nm 12-inch advanced production plant in Arizona, USA; in 2021, it announced the establishment of a 3D IC material research and development center in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Set up factories. In December 2022, TSMC held a relocation ceremony in Arizona, USA, and announced that it will upgrade the US 5nm fab to 4nm, and build a 3nm fab in the United States at the same time. At the end of the same month, TSMC held a 3nm mass production and factory expansion ceremony in Nanke.
Industry insiders also revealed that TSMC is expected to announce its plan to build a factory in Germany this year, and the direction of its capital expenditure plan will undoubtedly be one of the most watched projects in the upcoming law conference.
Liu Deyin said in his speech that TSMC maintains its technological leadership, while deeply cultivating Taiwan, continuing to invest and co-prosper with the environment. The 3nm mass production and plant expansion ceremony demonstrates TSMC’s specific actions in developing advanced technology and expanding advanced production capacity in Taiwan, together with the upstream and downstream of the supply chain. To grow and cultivate future talents, from design to manufacturing, packaging and testing, from equipment to materials, to release the world’s most competitive advanced process technology and reliable production capacity to drive future technological innovation.
Who is the strongest at 3nm? TSMC’s yield rate is as high as 80%
It is understood that TSMC is located in the Southern Science Park Wafer 18 Factory for TSMC to produce 5nm and 3nm process technology super large fab (GIGAFAB Facilities). The total investment in the plant exceeded NT$1.86 billion, creating more than 23,500 construction jobs and more than 11,300 direct high-tech jobs. In addition to TSMC’s continuous expansion of 3nm production capacity in Taiwan, the second phase of plant construction in the United States has also started simultaneously. TSMC estimates that the revenue of the first year of mass production of 3nm process technology will be better than that of 5nm mass production in 2020. It is estimated that 3nm process technology will release about 1.5 trillion US dollars in the value of terminal products worldwide within five years of mass production.