Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, will begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips by 2025 as it races with its top competitors to be first with the advanced technology.

At its North America Technology Symposium on Thursday U.S. time, TSMC highlighted the new technology and said chips made using the 2nm process will be 10-15 percent faster at the same power or save 25-30 percent power at the same speed compared to its 3nm process.

The 2nm process chips will feature a new technology called "nanosheet transistor architecture" for better performance and power efficiency, TSMC said.

TSMC's roadmap is similar to that of its major competitors -- Samsung Electronics and Intel Corporation -- which also have plans to manufacture 2nm chips around 2025.

"We are living in a rapidly changing, supercharged, digital world where demand for computational power and energy efficiency is growing faster than ever before, creating unprecedented opportunities and challenges for the semiconductor industry," said TSMC CEO C.C. Wei (???) at the event.

The chipmaker, which launched the 5nm process in 2020, is scheduled to start commercial production of the 3nm process later this year in Tainan.

As for its 2nm-process fabs, TSMC has said it will build a wafer plant in northern Taiwan's Hsinchu and later expand production to Taichung in central Taiwan.

At the symposium, which was an in-person event after being held online the past two years, TSMC also revealed its latest expansion of an ultra-low power platform.

The company said it is currently developing N6e, a process technology that will provide the computing power and energy efficiency required by cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

By: DocMemory
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