According to this report from Morgan Stanley via a repost on Twitter:
TSMC N3e is the HPC version for Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc... The SoC companies Apple, Mediatek, will use N3. Please remember that TSMC sets expectations on the conservative so they don't disappoint. According to my sources N3 for Apple was frozen in December and the N3e process is now frozen with HVM starting in 1H 2023.
From last year:
"N3 risk production is scheduled in 2021, and production will start in second half of 2022," said C.C. Wei, chief executive officer of TSMC, during the company's conference call with analysts and investors. "So second half of 2022 will be our mass production, but you can expect that revenue will be seen in first quarter of 2023 because it takes long — it takes cycle time to have all those wafer out."
"We also introduced N3E as an extension of our N3 family," said CC Wei. "N3E will feature improved manufacturing process window with better performance, power and yield. Volume production of N3E is scheduled for 1 year after N3."
From what I was told N3 was going to be 30 EUV layers then that was lowered to 25. Today I hear N3e is closer to 20 EUV layers which is great news since EUV systems are a bottleneck. In fact, I do not see how TSMC, Intel and Samsung can equip all of the new fabs that are being announced with EUV machines since ASML can only make 55 systems per year and with the supply chain issues that in itself will be a challenge. I guess we will have fab shells populating the world as a symbol of things to come?
TSMC N3e is the HPC version for Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc... The SoC companies Apple, Mediatek, will use N3. Please remember that TSMC sets expectations on the conservative so they don't disappoint. According to my sources N3 for Apple was frozen in December and the N3e process is now frozen with HVM starting in 1H 2023.
From last year:
"N3 risk production is scheduled in 2021, and production will start in second half of 2022," said C.C. Wei, chief executive officer of TSMC, during the company's conference call with analysts and investors. "So second half of 2022 will be our mass production, but you can expect that revenue will be seen in first quarter of 2023 because it takes long — it takes cycle time to have all those wafer out."
"We also introduced N3E as an extension of our N3 family," said CC Wei. "N3E will feature improved manufacturing process window with better performance, power and yield. Volume production of N3E is scheduled for 1 year after N3."
From what I was told N3 was going to be 30 EUV layers then that was lowered to 25. Today I hear N3e is closer to 20 EUV layers which is great news since EUV systems are a bottleneck. In fact, I do not see how TSMC, Intel and Samsung can equip all of the new fabs that are being announced with EUV machines since ASML can only make 55 systems per year and with the supply chain issues that in itself will be a challenge. I guess we will have fab shells populating the world as a symbol of things to come?