Over the years, the technology related to chip manufacturing has evolved by leaps and bounds, unlike what is happening, for example, in the case of batteries, where the technology is practically the same as 20 years ago. One of the largest chipmakers in the world is TSMC, a Taiwan-based company which has confirmed that manufacturing of 1.6nm chips will begin in 2026.
The company made this announcement during the Open Innovation Platform 2024 which is being held these days in Amsterdam and this only confirms the predictions announced a few months ago, so, on this occasion, the roadmap seems come true. at least at present, they have even progressed slightly.
By the end of 2025, TSMC will have the technology to start producing chips 2 nautical miles (N2, N2P and N2X) in mass, while the manufacture of 1.6nm (A16) won't arrive until late next year, according to Dan Kochpatcharin, head of design infrastructure management at TSMC.
The manufacturing process for 2nm and 1.6nm is very similar and they are based on GAA (gate-all-round) transistors. However, the series N2 uses high performance capacitors SHPMIM to reduce the size of the transistor, while A16 used BSPDN. BSPDN allows us to offer better performance, greater consumption and greater energy efficiency, according to Ken Wang, design director of TSMC at the same event.
But, in turn, this adds thermal issues that they are working to resolve, resulting in the A16 being delayed until late 2026 or early 2027 in the worst case. For its part, N2P does not have the same problem when using SHPMIM, like N2X.
With Donald Trump in the White House, everything could change for TSMC
Donald Trump announced during the election campaign that he would become president of the United States the idea of adding tariffs on imports in order to force companies manufacturing semiconductors to create facilities in the United States. United. To do this, Biden created a special fund with more than $50 billion in 2022, but the set goal was not achieved.
As Trump said on Joe Rogan's podcast, apply duty chipmakers, chipmakers would be forced to build factories in the United States to save money. TSMC has repeatedly stated that it is not willing to export the most advanced manufacturing processes outside of Taiwan.
In 2021 alone, 44% of imports from Taiwan These were CPUs and GPUs, a figure that today can be much higher. If the price increase ultimately happens, NVIDIA and AMD, TSMC's main customers, will be forced to bear the cost or pass it on to the end customer. So, as always happens in these cases, we will always be the end users. .
There is also a slight possibility that TSMC will pick it up in the price, provided that the tariff Trump wants to impose is not an unaffordable scandal for either TSMC or any other company.
