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TSMC said it will soon begin producing through 3nm-class (N3) manufacturing technology. Although the firm did not disclose which clients will be the first to employ its N3 manufacturing technology, unofficial reports claim that Apple will be the production node’s initial client.

According to TSMC CEO Wei, the company plans to begin high-volume chip manufacturing using its N3 manufacturing technology “shortly”.

When compared to TSMC’s N5 fabrication process, the foundry’s 1st-Gen N3 fabrication process is expected to deliver 10 percent to 15 percent performance improvement (at the same power and sophistication), a 25 percent to 30 percent reduction in power consumption (at the same speed and transistor count) and a 1.6-fold increase in logic density.

TSMC’s plans for N3

TSMC intends to expand the N3 family in the future. N3E will have a better process window, N3P will have better performance, N3S will have more transistor density, and N3X will have even more performance enhancements for applications like CPUs.

As expected, the 3nm family of nodes will be utilized for many years. One of the primary aspects of N3 is TSMC’s FinFlex technology, which dramatically increases design freedom for fabless chip makers. The technology enables chip designers to mix and match different types of standard cells within a single block.

New tech brings change

That single-block tech allows manufacturers to precisely fine-tune performance, power consumption and area, which will be especially useful for complex devices like CPU or GPU cores that offer high transistor density and high clock speeds.

As a result, FinFlex will help firms that manufacture complicated System-on-Chips (SoCs), such as Apple, AMD, Intel, MediaTek and Nvidia.

Apple, one of TSMC’s biggest clients, is anticipated to be the first to use the foundry’s N3 technology. However, it’s is unknown what the organization intends to build with this node.

Tip: Shortages of low-cost chips hold up €600 billion industry