TSMC unveils 6nm process
Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES, Taipei
Wednesday 17 April 2019
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has announced its 6nm (N6) process, which provides a significant enhancement from its 7nm (N7) technology and offers customers a highly competitive performance-to-cost advantage as well as fast time-to-market with direct migration from N7-based designs.
By leveraging the new capabilities in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography gained from the N7+ technology currently in risk production, TSMC's N6 process delivers 18% higher logic density over the N7 process, the company claimed. At the same time, its design rules are fully compatible with TSMC's proven N7 technology, allowing its design ecosystem to be reused.
TSMC's N6 technology is scheduled for risk production in the first quarter of 2020, with target applications including high-to-mid end mobile, consumer applications, AI, networking, 5G infrastructure, GPU, and high-performance computing.