Germany Carl Zeiss, heart of Dutch ASML Lithography Equipment.

tidalwave said:

As of today, the leading edge chip is 7nm. TSMC has 120 days before US new restriction comes into effect. During this time Huawei can stockpile the parts before SMIC 7nm come onboard.

Huawei Kirin 1000 supposedly on 5nm. Looks like its not going to happen.
Its critical for China to beat up on apple, qualcomm to stall the 5nm progress so everybody stay put with 7nm. Ban mediatek and samsung 5nm into China.

Everything is relative. Of course 5G can be realized with only 7nm as long as your competitor dont have faster parts.

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And before 120 days, it will be extended ... again and again and then .... election and new President would emerge, not necessarily better but more stable and an adult

tidalwave said:

DPP is way easier to implement . it doesnt require those giant laser system for EUV like cymer and gigaphoton produced .
DPP is less efficient in energy conversion therefore less EUV light produced and less through put.

In earlier thread i already pointed out China can bypassed by hooking up the fabs next to particle physics synchrotron facility which generate huge amount of EUV light. A synchrontron facility can supply several EUV fabs. This is an option if it cant produce the type of laser system requires.

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I wonder if they haven’t done it because of other limitations or they never thought of it. Is there a way for you to inform either SMIC or chinese govt of this option? Looks like they should have looked into this years ago when ZTE was attacked. A task force should have been formed with all the chinese players around 2 years ago to plan.

I heard TSMC is finishing its new factory for the 5nm process in Taiwan? That's true or not?

tidalwave said:

Thats the forecast.
As of today, no one is producing 5nm physically.

Right now everyone is hurting by the virus.
If losing huawei and China throttle apple, qualcomm, watch out

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No, what you've said it not accurate.

Risk production of the first 5nm Apple chips by TSMC was already completed in January 2020.

Mass production of 5nm chips was supposed to have begun in April 2020, and given the situation in Taiwan, I expect this still went ahead.
In April 2020, Apple snapped up additional 5nm capacity that TSMC had previously reserved for Huawei.

And if you haven't noticed, the coronavirus actually means a lot more demand for processing power because everyone has to use laptops/smartphones/more home broadband/more apps and teleworking.

That means more demand for efficient 5nm chips. But TSMC can't ramp up fast enough, and COVID-19 isn't helping.

The latest news report is that due to COVID-19, TSMC has delayed trial production for the next generation 3nm process from June 2020 to October 2020.


Why on earth is 3nm still proceeding, if 5nm isn't viable?
Why are there so many companies still clamouring to get TSMC 5nm capacity?

ILikeChina said:

I heard TSMC is finishing its new factory for the 5nm process in Taiwan? That's true or not?

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Yes, production might start this year.

So essentially, by 2024, TSMC in Taiwan will probably have 3nm (and maybe even an improved version of that process), while the Arizona fab is chugging along on 5nm (and that's assuming everything there goes to the initial schedule).

That would leave the Arizona fab about 1.5-2 generation behind the global leading edge (similar thing happened with the Nanjing TSMC fab, which does 16nm. 16nm was cutting edge when the fab broke ground, but by the time it started operations in 2018, 16nm was about 2 generations behind 7nm).

antiterror13 said:

And before 120 days, it will be extended ... again and again and then .... election and new President would emerge, not necessarily better but more stable and an adult

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I suspect that progress on the Arizona fab will probably be linked to TSMC's financial outlook.

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Skywatcher said:

Yes, production might start this year.

So essentially, by 2024, TSMC in Taiwan will probably have 3nm (and maybe even an improved version of that process), while the Arizona fab is chugging along on 5nm (and that's assuming everything there goes to the initial schedule).

That would leave the Arizona fab about 1.5-2 generation behind the global leading edge (similar thing happened with the Nanjing TSMC fab, which does 16nm. 16nm was cutting edge when the fab broke ground, but by the time it started operations in 2018, 16nm was about 2 generations behind 7nm).

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No, risk production of the first 5nm chips by TSMC had already been completed in January 2020.

That is 5months ago.

The virus thing has delayed this.

But the question whether its economically feasible to use 5nm remains as China hasnt clamp dow on apple yet.

Definitely no apple 5nm products on the market. Only leading edge cellphone use 5nm chips, laptop, desktop dont, so the idea of ordering more 5nm because people stay at home doesnt stand due to virus. Apple use intel processor for macbook which has nothing to do with 5nm.

tidalwave said:

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The virus thing has delayed this.

But the question whether its economically feasible to use 5nm remains.

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It is economically feasible to use 5nm.

You should know better than anyone there are clear advantages in terms of cost, performance and power consumption.

And the production volumes are high enough.

AndrewS said:

It is economically feasible to use 5nm.

You should know better than anyone there are clear advantages in terms of cost, performance and power consumption.

And the production volumes are high enough.

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It's strange why it wouldn't be feasible. TSMC is using the same EUV machines it used to make 7nm to make 5nm and 3nm, they're already a sunk cost. China needs to get at least its first-gen DPP EUV machine in service yesterday.