Although there has been frequent news that the foundry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd may slow down the process of 3nm production expansion, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd has reiterated that 3nm production expansion will proceed as planned, Taiwan's Industrial and Commercial Times reported on Aug. 17.

Industry insiders point out that at the end of this year, Apple Inc will be the first customer to use 3nm to project films. Intel Corp will expand the use of 3nm to produce tiles in processors in the second half of next year, including AMD, NVIDIA Corp, Qualcomm Inc, MediaTek, Broadcom Ltd, and so on, and will gradually complete the opening of new 3nm chips next year and the year after next.

This year, due to external adverse factors such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and global inflation, the demand for smartphones and consumer electronics products is weak, and the demand for follow-up automotive chips and high-performance computing products (HPC) chips may also slow down. There are still doubts in the industry about whether the destocking can be effectively completed in the first half of next year. From the perspective of historical experience, the recession in the chip industry usually speeds up chip development.

With the new generation chip technology blueprint of major semiconductor manufacturers gradually clear, gradually turning to the 3nm process, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd expects that 3nm will become a large-scale and long-term demand process. At present, the Fab 18B factory built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd for the 3nm process has entered mass production, and the construction plan of the P7~P9 plant in the Fab 18 plant has also been launched.

According to Taiwanese media reports, Apple Inc won the top prize in 3nm this time and will use 3nm for the first time in the second half of the year. The first product may be M2 Pro processor. It is expected that next year's iPhoneA17 processor, as well as M2 and M3 series processors will use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd 3nm process.

Although Intel Corp intends to rush into foundry, after his own processor adopts chiplet design, its built-in drawing chip (GPU) and computing chip (CPU) may use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd 3nm process for mass production in the second half of next year. Intel Corp's GPU and FPGA will also use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd 3nm after next year and the year after next.

In addition, after AMD has switched to the Zen 5 architecture next year and the year after next, it has been confirmed that some of its products will be produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd 3nm. As for NVIDIA Corp, Qualcomm Inc, MediaTek, Broadcom Ltd and other big customers, they will also complete the 3nm chip design and start mass production after 2024.