AMD has embraced the 5nm process in its workhorse lineup with the newly announced Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 series AM5 processors, followed by the Radeon RX 7000 series RDNA 3 GPUs, but the company is clearly not going to stop there this. It has been reported recently that the red team is planning to meet with TSMC to discuss future 3nm and 2nm chip supply cooperation.
The 5nm process, which further reduces node size compared to the 7nm process used in the previous two generations of Ryzen CPUs and RDNA GPUs, allows AMD to dramatically increase chip size in the same area.
The Zen 4 R9-7950X also increases the CPU acceleration frequency from 4.9 GHz to 5.7 GHz compared to the Zen 3 R9-5950X desktop flagship processor.
Also referencing the RDNA graphics architecture roadmap, the 5nm process is known to increase performance per watt by more than 50%.
Interestingly, AMD doesn’t plan to stay on the 5nm process for much longer, even though it has already benefited from significant performance gains.
DigiTimes reports that the company’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, and other executives are planning to meet with a number of companies in Taiwan, China, in the coming months.
A visit to chip foundry giant TSMC is the most important stop on the trip, during which the two sides are expected to discuss production plans for 3nm and even 2nm chips (the latter are still in the testing phase).
As one of the leading companies leading the computer hardware / semiconductor industry, TSMC has a high-end chip foundry business for companies such as Apple, AMD, and Nvidia.
Since shifting its production focus from Grosvenor to TSMC in 2018, AMD has maintained a fairly healthy relationship with it.
As planned, AMD hopes to pilot the Zen 4 @ 3nm process node in 2024. However, TSMC predicts that the 2nm process node will have to wait until 2025 at the earliest.
