TSMC expects to offer 7nm EUV process (N7+) in 2019

At an annual event, TSMC updated analysts and members of the press about its latest innovations. The foundry is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and expects to tape out over ten 7nm chip designs before year-end. Volume production of 7nm chips using traditional immersion lithography is expected in 2018 and this will include a quad-core ARM A72 based processor running at up to 4GHz.

The first extreme ultraviolet (EUV) based process that will be offered by TSMC will be known as N7+. TSMC said it will be relatively simple to port design rules and IP to the N7+ process and claims it can put this in production in 2019:

The foundry will provide a utility to port immersion design rules to the EUV process that will “clean up most of the layout differences,” Hou said. Overall, the work of moving from N7 to N7+ should represent about a third of the effort of migrating to a new node, he added.

The first EUV-based 7nm node promises 20 percent greater density, 8-10 percent higher speeds and 15-20 percent lower power consumption than the traditional 7nm node.

Compared with the 16FFC process, an ARM A72 core made on the the N7+ node can be optimized for 30 percent higher performance or 50 percent lower power consumption. Further details about TSMC's new silicon menu can be read at EE Times.