Apple chip builder TSMC not yet ready to move to next-gen lithography system
Back in December, Dutch tech giant ASML shipped its first High-NA Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine to Intel. The $400 million machine will take us to the next tier of chip production with a process node of 2nm and less.
The original EUV machines, also made by ASML, were necessary to get chip foundries to manufacture components under 10nm. A lower process node means smaller transistors which means that more can fit inside a chip. The higher a chip's transistor count, the more powerful and/or energy efficient it is.
The reason that the EUV machine is so important is that it prints circuitry patterns on silicon wafers that are thinner than human hair. This is required when you are building a chip with billions of transistors inside. The 7nm A13 Bionic SoC, used to power 2019's iPhone 11 series, contained 8.5 billion transistors. The 3nm A17 Pro used to run the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max sports 19 billion transistors. $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US$ $Apple(AAPL.US$
Disclaimer: Community is offered by Moomoo Technologies Inc. and is for educational purposes only.
Read more
Comment
Sign in to post a comment
