TSMC announced production of 1.6nm chips by 2026

On Wednesday at the North American Technology Symposium in Santa Clara, California, TSMC, the world's leading contract manufacturer, announced that it will start producing chips using the 1.6nm process by 2026.

Here's What We Know

This year, TSMC's most advanced smartphone processors will be made using the second-generation 3nm process (N3E). Chips such as the A18 Pro and A18 Bionic for the iPhone 16 series, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC and MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 chipset are expected to be made using this process technology. As process nodes get smaller, so does the size of the transistors in the chips. This allows more transistors to be placed, which in turn increases the performance and power efficiency of the components.

For example, the 7nm A13 Bionic that powered the 2019 iPhone 11 series contained 8.5 billion transistors, while last year's iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max feature the 3nm A17 Pro, which already contains 19 billion transistors. TSMC says the 1.6nm node will "significantly improve logic density and performance."

TSMC has announced that their 1.6nm process will include "backside power rails" that move the wiring to connect chips to power supplies from the top of the chip to the bottom. The current configuration involves wires above the chips connected to power supplies competing for space with the wires connecting components, resulting in power loss and reduced efficiency.

TSMC will begin mass production of chips on its 2nm process node in the second half of next year. TSMC's 2-nanometre process will use Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors, which have a gate that spans all four sides of the channel, reducing current leakage and increasing drive current. Samsung already uses GAA transistors in its 3nm process. TSMC had already provided 2nm prototypes to its two largest customers, Apple and NVIDIA, late last year.

Source: Nikkei Asia