TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, has managed to manufacture over 1 billion 7nm chips. This arrives in just a bit over 2 years since it began manufacturing the 7nm process, which is a notable achievement that the company celebrated earlier this week.
The number of chips produced could cover 13 Manhattan city blocks. TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) began production of 7nm chips back in April 2018. Since then, the firm has “manufactured 7nm chips for well over 100 products from dozens of customers.” The customers include big names in the industry like AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, and even Huawei up until September of this year.
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In comparison, Intel, one of the other major chipmakers, has yet to transition into the 7nm process. It has faced various issues in its yield and has delayed the 7nm chips till late 2022 or early 2023. On the other hand, TSMC has already managed to equip each of its 7nm chips with at least one billion transistors inside i. In other words, the company has also managed to make more than one quintillion 7nm transistors as well.
One of the reasons through which TSMC managed to achieve this milestone is its EUV lithography technology that the company introduced with its latest generation. EUV stands for “extreme ultraviolet light” which is used to print on a scale of nanometers. This technology was particularly difficult to introduce to its mass production line, although, it has definitely paid off and the company is already working with 5nm chips as well.
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