The highest performing area of the TSMC is currently 7 nm, or N7, used by AMD Ryzen processors and AMD Navi GPUs, but will soon be replaced by the 7 nm + or N7 + node, which will then be -5 nm or N5 and then 3 nm or N3. Following this cadence, where the factory is capable of making wafers and chips at 1 nm, Will it represent meat chips? TSMC does not think, and as a result you must change the name of the designation.
TSMC and designation of production facilities
While there are still a few places before a single name is formed, it should be remembered that there are no standards in the industry how to call synthetic surfaces. This means that manufacturers have complete freedom to use marketing tactics and change the names of places to look like they are not.
When asked about the relationship between 7 nm and the physical size of the transistor during the AMD webinar "Meet the Specialists," TSMC Marketing Director Godfrey Cheng replied:
«From 0.35 microns, the value associated with each node was not represented in terms of the physical meaning of the transistors. 7 nm or N7 is a generic name for this generation industry, the next one will be the N5 and there will be more places, but then we have to look for a brand new name, different from the current one, which really represents the physical nature of the chips and does not create confusion. ».
That geographical names are not representative of their physical condition is a widespread and well-known problem that even Intel published long ago (2017) in a blog post entitled «Let's explain the confusion of naming places », and the reasons for doing so were clear, since at that time the company encountered a manufacturing problem at 10 nm too late despite its intention, and that it has never been shown to better processors. Intel & # 39; s 10 nm node is above the 7 nm node competed depending on the actual quantity of transistors.
In this publication, Intel's current director of design and development, Mark Bohr (who is retiring in 2019), wrote that the industry needed a "high density metric" to be able to fight these companies with a highly developed lithographic process but that's exactly what it is. you have not increased the misery of transistors.
"Users should be able to easily compare the rendering of various chip manufacturer's lithographic process", said Bohr, «And within each producer, of its production processes. The challenge lies in the increasing growth of manufacturing processes and the variety of projects ».
According to Intel, which apparently gives TSMC the reason why it needs to change the designation, how the names are supposed to match the difficulty of logical transistors per square meter (MTr / mm2, or millions of transistors per millimeter).
So far no one has supported Intel in this "pre-approved transistor mass formula," but that could change with the latest TSMC statements we tell you today, and that is when the industry is close to reaching its point. so. Maybe this is just a simple dream of co-ordination, where manufacturers are honest and don't use marketing strategies with their own brand names to look better than themselves, but maybe eventually we reach a point where any user can identify a node's technology by seeing its name.
