The management of TSMC company often and willingly shares plans for business development. This has a special meaning. Developers of microelectronics must know in advance what they will have to work with in a year, two or later. Samsung followed a different strategy. Until May this year, it also had an excuse. Formally, Samsung was not one of the contract manufacturers of chips. Only recently, a semiconductor manufacturing unit was allocated to a separate subsidiary. We should expect that now we will hear more about the production plans of this South Korean giant.
But back to TSMC. The other day, Samsung at a technology conference said that it will be the first in 2018 to release 7-nm chips using EUV-scanners. The company also admitted that the risky production with the norms of 4 nm at its plants will start in 2020. This is definitely a call for TSMC. And the leadership of the Taiwan chip maker did not become silent.
DigiTimes website with reference to one of the two directors of TSMC reports that the company will begin mass production of 7-nm solutions in 2018, and the improved 7-nm process technology will come into production one year later, and will also start using EUV lithography. Unfortunately for TSMC, in this it can not get ahead of Samsung. But the 7-th process technology TSMC will cover not only mobile applications, but also an area of supercomputers, automotive electronics and things connected to the Internet. The company's current 10-nm process technology, to be specified, is intended exclusively for the release of mobile processors for wearable devices.
At the moment the company has 12 digital projects of 7-nm solutions. All these projects are solutions for mobile devices. In the near future TSMC expects the completion of projects of 7-nm solutions for the supercomputer market. Preparation of 7-nm chips for automotive electronics is expected later - after approval of the corresponding standard AEC-Q100 (Grade 0) in 2018.
In 2019, the company will begin the risky production of mobile and HPC-processors (high-performance) using a 5-nm process technology. For things with an Internet connection, the technological processes of 55, 40 and 28 nm ULP are offered. In 2017, the company expects to record over 70 customers for IoT electronics. Separately, TSMC expects growth in the smartphone market in 2017 by 6% - to 1.55 billion units. The Chinese smartphone market will grow stronger - by 10% or up to 852 million devices in 2017.