TSMC has updated its roadmap through 2029, adding two leading-edge nodes and one node extension. Going forward, the Taiwanese foundry will offer a new process technology for consumer electronics at an annual cadence, emphasizing cost, efficiency and IP reuse. New high-performance compute (HPC) nodes, squeezing as much performance and power use improvements from silicon as possible, will be released every two years.
For HPC and AI, the new A12 node, slated for 2029, builds on A16, which will go into production next year. Key differentiator for these nodes is backside power delivery. The client-oriented A13 node, also scheduled for 2029, is a derivative of A14, which will move into production in 2028. The N2 family will be extended with N2U as “a balanced option for AI, HPC and mobile applications leveraging the process maturity and strong yield performance of the 2nm technology platform,” TSMC writes in a press release. N2U is slated for production in 2028.
Notably absent from the roadmap, still, is any commitment to high-NA EUV lithography through 2029. “I’m amazed by our R&D team,” TSMC executive Kevin Zhang told reporters. “They continue to find a way to drive the technology scaling without using high-NA. One day they may have to use it, but at this point, we continue to be able to harvest the benefit from current EUV, and not have to go to high-NA, which is very, very expensive.”
According to Dan Hutcheson, vice chair at research firm Techinsights, the key issue is that TSMC’s customers don’t like having their exposure field size cut in half. This reduction was a necessary compromise in the design of high-NA optics. More powerful stages compensate for having to perform more exposures per wafer, but the need to ‘stitch’ two exposures together to obtain a full-sized chip may be putting off chip designers.
A potential remedy is to make twice-as-large high-NA reticles. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet has voiced his support if the industry asks for them. A spokesperson told Bits&Chips that ASML is currently not working on bigger reticles.
