After the 5nm process, TSMC is sprinting to 3nm with full force, and has prepared multiple versions, including at least N3, N3E, and N3B.
N3 is a regular standard version, N3E was supposed to be a performance enhanced version (Enhanced), mass production in 2024, but now it has become a lite version, the specifications have shrunk, the good news is that the progress is ahead of schedule.
It is reported that the N3E process will use fewer EUV lithography layers, from 25 layers to 21 layers, the production difficulty is lower, the yield can be higher, and the cost can naturally be reduced, but the transistor density will be about 8% lower than the N3 version, and it will still be 60% higher than the N5.
In contrast, N3's transistor density is 70% higher than N5's.
The N3E process will be completed by the end of this month, and production will be brought forward from the third quarter of 2023 to the second quarter of 2023.
The N3 process is also scheduled for 2023, but it is unclear which quarter.
As for the N3B version, it is only known that it is based on N3, an improvement for specific users, but nothing else is known.
