TSMC’s advanced process wafer foundry quotations below 7nm will increase by another 3 to 6% next year, while those above 16nm will remain unchanged.According to reports, TSMC has notified customers of its price increase plan. Semiconductor industry insiders revealed thatMajor manufacturers such as NVIDIA, MediaTek, and AMD are already willing to accept price increases.
According to TSMC’s latest third-quarter financial report, TSMC’s 3nm process revenue accounts for 6% of total revenue, which is mainly due to the shipment of the iPhone 15Pro series equipped with A17Pro processor; 5nm process accounts for 37%, an increase of 7 percentage points compared with the second quarter; 7nm process accounts for 16%, a decrease of 7 percentage points compared with the second quarter. 7nm and more advanced process revenue accounted for 59%, a decrease of 6 percentage points compared with the second quarter.
Since Apple is currently the only major customer of TSMC's 3nm process, this has also resulted in limited growth in TSMC's 3nm revenue share. However, with the subsequent production of Qualcomm and MediaTek's flagship chips, TSMC's advanced process revenue share is expected to further increase.
In addition, at the recent third quarter law conference,TSMC also stated that the 2nm process is expected to be mass-produced in 2025, and will be carried out simultaneously at two wafer fabs in Baoshan, Hsinchu and Kaohsiung.
It is understood that TSMC's 2nm process technology will abandon the traditional FinFET transistor process and shift to a GAA all-around gate transistor architecture (TSMC's version is named Nanosheet). Compared with the N3E process, the performance will be improved by 10-15% at the same power consumption, and the power consumption will be reduced by 25-30% at the same performance, but the transistor density will only increase by 10-20%.
In addition, as part of the 2nm process technology platform, TSMC is also developing a backside power rail solution, which is most suitable for high-performance computing-related applications.
According to TSMC's plan, the goal is to launch backside power supply technology for customers to adopt in the second half of 2025 and mass produce it in 2026.
As TSMC continues to strengthen its strategy, 2nm and its derivative technologies will further expand TSMC’s technological leadership.
As for price, the wafer foundry quotation for the 2nm process may further rise from US$20,000/piece for 3nm to US$25,000/piece.