TSMC chips to hit 1.4nm in 2028, with confusing name confirmed

Apple chipmaker TSMC says that it will make chips with a sub-2nm process size for the first time ever in 2028, and that the development of 1.4nm chips will allow for greater AI capabilities. The iPhone maker is generally first in line for the company’s most advanced chipmaking capabilities, so we can expect the chips – slightly confusingly dubbed A14 – to debut in 2028 iPhones … Up until around 1997, the sizes of chip processes referred to physical size of transistor gates in nanometers. Since then, the actual numbers are more marketing speak than anything, but it is the case that each process generation is smaller than the last, and that TSMC has for a great many years led the race toward ever smaller processes. But the convention of using nanometers to describe the process size has led to a slight naming issue for TSMC. All was fine when it was N7, N5, N3, and N2 – but we heard back in 2023 that the company would adopt a new naming convention once it moved below 2nm. Specifically, ... Read full article.