TSMC co-CEO C.C. Wei stated that their 7-nm manufacturing is going smoothly, and they have comprehensively improved its yield, performance, and power consumption. Currently there are over 50 products which have been taped-out, and they estimate that some of these products will come out this year with applications in domains which include mobile phones, server CPUs, network processors, gaming GPUs, FPGAs, and automotive components. He also emphasized that TSMC’s 7-nm manufacturing is just entering into full production.

In addition, co-CEO C.C. Wei also gave an explanation of the development and implementation of the 7-nm enhanced version (7-nm +), which will be the next generation of 7-nm manufacturing technologies.

The other co-CEO, Mark Liu also emphasized that their EUV equipment is part of a completely new generation of technology and that TSMC have their sights locked onto 3-nm production as the objective for the development of the joint collaboration with ASML.

On the other hand, TSMC also pointed out that the importance of their wafer level packaging technologies, which include CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) and InFo, is continually increasing, and they are becoming TSMC’s key chip manufacturing technologies.

At the same time, TSMC also reiterated that as 5G and AI applications go into effect, tremendous new demand will be brought about for the next generation of manufacturing technologies , such as mobile phone face-recognition technologies, AR and VR, data centers, ADAS and self-driving cars, and IoT applications.

(TR/ Phil Sweeney)