According to sources, TSMC will work with Bosch and two other European companies related to the automotive industry to jointly finance the former’s wafer fab in Germany, which will reportedly target 28-nanometer special process technology. Although legacy nodes will undoubtedly address the chip supply gap that is constraining the German auto industry.
TSMC has previously said its overseas facilities could account for 20% or more of its 28nm and beyond capacity in five years or later, depending on customer demand and government support.
Discussions are still ongoing, focusing on how Bosch and other partners can take risks in manpower, unions and production efficiency, a report said.
A Bosch spokesman said the company does not comment on the reports. If the deal goes through, TSMC would use a similar financial model to the one it already has with Sony in Japan (Japan provides TSMC with a 40% subsidy, Sony Ventures), and could expect a similar level of subsidy.
Currently, GlobalFoundries’ 12nm process in Dresden is the most advanced process node in Germany. While Berlin may be content with TSMC’s alleged 28nm offerings in the short term, whether TSMC will introduce more advanced nodes on Germain soil depends in part on how Berlin assesses its own security needs.
28nm: Not bright in Taiwan, but bright overseas?
A few days before the news of TSMC’s construction of a 28nm factory in Germany, there was news that TSMC’s 28nm expansion plan in Kaohsiung was cancelled.
TSMC announced in November 2021 to invest in the establishment of two 12-inch wafer fabs of 7nm and 28nm in Kaohsiung. The 7nm fab has been suspended earlier this year, and now it is reported that TSMC originally planned to open the bidding for the Kaohsiung plant in January. With a one-year delay, related clean rooms, installation operations are postponed, and the list of 28-nanometer machines planned to be purchased by TSMC’s Kaohsiung plant is also canceled. This means that the 28-nanometer plant that is expected to be completed in 2024 may not be completed as scheduled.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Qimai said that he will respect the progress of TSMC’s plant construction, and the Kaohsiung City Government will fully assist and cooperate with the central government.
TSMC said that the process delivery and timetable of the Kaohsiung factory depend on customer needs and market trends. It is currently in the silent period of the corporate briefing, and will clearly explain the overall market conditions at the legal briefing on April 20.
At the same time, we found that outside of Taiwan, TSMC’s 28nm is very popular.
As early as 2021, TSMC, the leading wafer foundry, joined hands with Japan’s Sony Semiconductor Solutions to establish a subsidiary in Japan and cooperate in the construction and operation of a wafer fab. According to the deliberations of the Taiwan authorities, the announcement was approved on the 20th.
TSMC announced on November 9 that the new fab in Japan is in cooperation with Japan’s SONY Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (SSS), and TSMC will set up a subsidiary in Kumamoto City (Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, Inc., JASM). Initially adopting 22/28nm process to provide professional integrated circuit manufacturing services to meet the strong demand for special technologies in the global market, SONY Semiconductor Solutions will invest a minority stake.
Japan’s JASM fab is expected to start construction in 2022 and produce by the end of 2024. The fab will directly create about 1,500 high-tech professional jobs, with a monthly production capacity of 45,000 12-inch wafers. The initial estimated capital expenditure is about 7 billion US dollars, and the Japanese government has promised to support it. Under the final agreement between TSMC and Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Sony Semiconductor Solutions plans to invest approximately US$500 million to obtain no more than 20% of JASM’s equity. The conditions for the completion of the transaction between TSMC and Sony Semiconductor Solutions follow general transaction practices.
According to the announcement of the Investment Review Committee of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, in order to meet the needs of Japanese customers nearby, TSMC invested a maximum of 237.8 billion and 20.8 million yen to establish JASM in Japan, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and circuit-aided design of integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices.
This case is a joint venture between TSMC and Sony Semiconductor Solutions of Japan to set up a technology node 22/28nm 12-inch wafer fab in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. TSMC’s tentative shareholding ratio is up to 81%. Considering that TSMC’s establishment of a factory in Japan is a cooperation between Taiwan and Japan’s index companies, and the relevant process technology is at least one generation behind Taiwan, China, there should be no doubts about the outflow of high-end process technology. Taiwan’s semiconductor technology still maintains an international competitive advantage. It was discussed at the committee meeting After that, agree to the case.
The factory is progressing so well that TSMC even plans to build a second factory in Japan.
Why is 28nm so capable?
Statistics show that in 2011, TSMC took the lead in the field of professional integrated circuit manufacturing services to launch the 28nm general purpose (General Purpose) process technology, and provided the industry’s most complete and diverse 28nm process options according to customer needs, so as to provide customers with more efficient production High-performance, more energy-saving and more environmentally friendly chip products.
TSMC’s 28nm process technology has the advantages of high performance and low power consumption, and seamlessly integrates with TSMC’s 28nm design ecosystem to help customers accelerate time to market. It can support customers including central processing units, image processing Devices, high-speed network chips, smart phones, application processors (APs), tablet PCs, home entertainment, digital consumer electronics, automotive devices, and the Internet of Things.
In addition, TSMC’s world-leading 28nm process technology mainly adopts high-k metal gate (High-k Metal Gate, HKMG) gate-last technology. Compared with the gate-first technology, the gate-last technology has the advantages of lower leakage current and better chip performance.
According to a previous report, 28nm semiconductors have the following typical characteristics:
The 28nm technology node is the last generation using planar (Planer) transistors.
Do not use Self-Aligned Double Patterning (SADP, self-aligned double mode, use SADP from FinFET).
Companies such as Renesas Electronics, which originally adopted the IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturer) model, handed over to Foundry from the 28nm generation.
From 28/22 nanometers to 16/14 nanometers, although the performance has been improved, the cost has also risen, and there is this irreconcilable contradiction. As far as Apple’s iPhone and High-Performance Computing (high-performance computing) are concerned, even if the cost rises slightly, FinFET will be used (using SADP). However, most other electronic devices such as automobiles do not require such high performance. The performance of the 28nm technology node is sufficient, and even many manufacturers prefer to adopt 28nm, which has an advantage in cost. Therefore, the results shown in the figure below appear, and most of the semiconductors used in electronic equipment are concentrated on 28 nanometers.
LSI (System on Chip, SoC), TCON (Timing Controller, timing controller) for notebook computer Wi-Fi systems. SoC and NAND controller for tablet PC. The SoC, TCON of the TV, and the semiconductor (Connectivity) play a role in the connection. SoC for router Wi-Fi. SoC for smartphones (entry-level), communication semiconductor (RF, Radio Frequency, radio frequency), display driver IC (Display Drive IC, DDI), CMOS image sensor (CMOS Image Sensor, CIS) logic semiconductor, image signal processor (Image Signal Processor, ISP) for face recognition, etc., NAND controller. MCU (Micro Controller Unit, generally referred to as microcontroller unit) for automobiles. SoC, MCU, NAND controllers for game consoles. MCU for wearable devices, True Wireless Stereo (TWS, true wireless stereo) for wireless headphones, ASIC (logic semiconductor for specific directions), FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array, field programmable logic gate array), for Connected semiconductors (Connectivity).
The uses for 28nm (including improved 22nm) semiconductors are endless. The demand for these 28nm semiconductors has rapidly expanded due to the new crown epidemic. Moreover, almost all of the above 28nm semiconductors are produced by Foundry.
All in all, 28nm semiconductors have become a “sweet node” (the 16nm proposed by McKinsey will not become a “sweet node” because it uses SADP’s FinFET). In addition, most of the above 28nm products are manufactured by TSMC, and TSMC’s 28nm production capacity is likely to have encountered a “bottleneck”.
The figure above shows the quarterly sales of each technology node of TSMC. Although UMC, GF, SMIC and other factories are operating at full capacity, TSMC’s 28nm production capacity is still the largest in the world. Therefore, orders for 28nm worldwide are pouring into TSMC. In order to further expand the production capacity of 28nm, only new factories can be built
