5nm chip has not arrived in the mainstream market yet. But Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has already begun working on the 3nm process. The 3nm process could be used on Apple’s A-series or Apple Silicon chips that will be produced in 2022.
This year Apple and Huawei will ship A14 Bionic and the HiSilicon Kirin 1020 respectively using TSMC’s 5nm process. Although Huawei will not get any more components from TSMC starting from this September. 5nm process has increased the number of transistors inside the components by approximately 77%. This makes the chips more powerful and energy-efficient than the 7nm chips. But in the quest for more power, TSMC is developing a 3nm process.
Rumors in June said that TSMC was on schedule to create chips using a 3nm process in 2022, with risk production anticipated to take place in 2021. In a report from MyDrivers citing a company official, the timing of risk production in 2021 will be officially announced by the chip foundry before the end of the year.
Compared to 5nm, 3nm will have a 15% greater transistor density, boast a performance increase of between 10% and 15%, and offer energy efficiency savings of between 20% and 25%.
It was rumored that TSMC would abandon the FinFET transistor process at the 3nm node and switch to GAA surround gate transistors. But according to the latest news, TSMC has successfully developed the 2nm process using GAA surround gate transistors but they will use the traditional FinFET process for the 3nm process.