It appears that the future can be seen right here, brought to us by Taiwan. TSMC already has its N5P-5nm technology ready, which seems to be taking a big leap.
Recently we’ve seen a lot of news related to the chip manufacturing processes. This is normal, as there is a race in the technology field led by TSMC and Samsung. Both manufacturers are fighting to offer the greatest technological innovation before anyone else. In this case, TSMC and its 5nm node are the protagonists for a brutal win.
TSMC N5P: 5nm has an 87% higher transistor density
This is what the WikiChip analysis of the TSMC 5nm manufacturing process: N5P finds. One of the conclusions of this analysis is that an increase in transistor density of up to 87% is estimated in relation to the commercial 7nm node: the N7 DUV. In this report, this increase is estimated to be 84-87%.
It is expected that TSMC will begin mass production of the N5P node by the end of the year. Its predecessor is the TSMC N5, which will go into production soon (April or May) and whose technology is geared towards the next generation of Apple A14 processors. However, COVID-19 has taken its toll on companies like TSMC, so we’ll have to see how it develops.
When you return to the N5P node, it delivers an estimated density of 171.3 million transistors per mm², compared to 91.2 million transistors per mm² for the N7. A week ago we said that TSMC would start manufacturing 5nm in April, so we’ll have news soon.