TSMC has unveiled two new chip manufacturing nodes: the A13 for AI chips in 2029 and the N2U as a more cost-effective option for phones and laptops. For both processes, TSMC will continue to use existing ASML EUV machines rather than the new High-NA EUV variant, which costs twice as much.<\/p>\n
TSMC unveiled two new chip manufacturing processes on Wednesday at the North America Technology Symposium 2026<\/a>. The A13 node, a direct evolution of the A14 announced in 2025, is expected to enter production in 2029 and is primarily aimed at AI chips. The N2U is a more accessible variant intended for both AI and chips in phones and laptops, and is expected to enter production in 2028.<\/p>\n For both new processes, TSMC is therefore not opting for ASML\u2019s so-called High-NA EUV machines. These cost approximately $400 million each, roughly twice as much as the current EUV generation. <\/p>\n TSMC has made a conscious decision to maximize the use of its existing machines. \u201cThis is where I think our R&D has done exceptionally well in terms of leveraging existing EUV technology while setting an aggressive technology scaling roadmap,\u201d says<\/a> Kevin Zhang, deputy co-chief operations officer and senior vice president at TSMC. \u201cThis is definitely a strength.\u201d<\/p>\n Tip: TSMC prioritizes efficiency over raw performance<\/a><\/p>\n Chiplets are becoming the new driving force<\/p>\n The gains at the transistor level are modest, but TSMC expects the bigger performance leaps for AI chips to come from a different angle: combining multiple chips into a single package. Whereas Nvidia\u2019s Vera Rubin, which is set to launch this year and manufactured by TSMC, consists of two compute chips and eight stacks of high-bandwidth memory, TSMC aims to combine ten large chips with twenty memory stacks by 2028.<\/p>\n Combining multiple chips presents its own challenges. Chips generate heat during use, and the various materials used in the packaging expand differently when heated. This adds a new layer of complexity for chip designers. At the same time, TSMC appeared earlier this year to be largely unaffected by the trade war<\/a> and projected approximately 10 percent revenue growth by 2025, partly thanks to sustained demand for AI hardware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TSMC has unveiled two new chip manufacturing nodes: the A13 for AI chips in 2029 and the N2U…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[4937,65,522,4938,461,1455,1454],"class_list":{"0":"post-5207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-asml","8":"tag-a13","9":"tag-asml","10":"tag-euv","11":"tag-n2u","12":"tag-nvidia","13":"tag-semiconductors","14":"tag-tsmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}