TSMC expects to be able to make the first 5nm chips in early 2019

TSMC expects to start risk production of 5nm chips in the first half of 2019. Small-scale production for 7nm chips will start this quarter, followed by mass production next year.

TSMC has deployed six thousand R&D employees to develop its 5nm process and hundreds of employees are already working on the successor to 3nm. That’s what TSMC CEO Mark Liu said at a supplier event, according to Nikkei.

TSMC’s research & development spending is up 15 percent this year from last year. At the moment, TSMC is in the process of starting up 10nm production, which should be up and running in the second half of this year, presumably to supply the socs for new iPhones.

In 2018, the switch to 7nm should be made. Initially, this production will be based on immersion lithography, but TSMC gradually wants to switch to the successor, euv lithography at 7nm, Digitimes writes. ASML, supplier of euv machines for that production, announced at the end of January that the euv technology should be ready for mass production at the end of 2018, early 2019.

TSMC is in a race with Samsung in particular to switch to new chip production processes as quickly as possible. The aim is, among other things, to bind Apple as a customer for the production of the chips for the iPhone. TSMC is currently making those chips. Samsung produces its own Exynos-socs for the upcoming Galaxy S8 at 10nm and Samsung also makes the Snapdragon 835 for Qualcomm on that production process.