At the beginning of monopolizing advanced processes, how does TSMC make 7nm a watershed in wafer foundry?

With United Power, Grid Core and other give up follow-up, advanced manufacturing process has gradually become an oligopoly market, TSMC has become the biggest beneficiary of the semiconductor industry driven by Moore's Law.

7nm process has become a watershed in the field of wafer manufacturing. Since the launch of 7nm nodes and mass production in 2018, TSMC has surpassed its competitors and occupied a more and more solid leading position in chip manufacturing. So far, TSMC has shipped more than 1 billion 7nm chips, which has been incorporated into a more and more mature process. The company's Q1 financial report shows that shipments from the 5nm process account for 14% of total wafer revenue, while 35% of the 7nm process.

In the war of advanced processes, the 28nm process is the beginning for TSMC to get rid of its competitors. Its 28nm process began mass production in 2011, three to five years ahead of its competitors, and its 28nm market share was close to 100% the following year. After that, TSMC became more and more brave. In 2014, it launched the "Nighthawk Project" and fought with all its strength for 10 nm. The R & D personnel worked three shifts 24 hours a day, which greatly improved the efficiency of research and development. By the end of 2016, TSMC's 10nm began mass production and production capacity began to climb in 2017. Up to 7nm, only TSMC and Samsung are in mass production, and TSMC still has an absolute advantage. Intel claims that the 10nm process, which is equivalent to TSMC's 7nm, has not completely solved the problem of mass production, while TSMC has already begun to deploy the 5nm process.

Throughout TSMC's dominance of contract manufacturing, behind such excellent manufacturing, it is difficult to attribute its success to one person, but to the cooperation of its team of tens of thousands of engineers. The industry points out that TSMC's 7nm process can improve yield and mass production faster than ever before. In addition to the advantages of talent team, there are also three success factors.

The first is the efficiency of teamwork and intelligent production. 7nm as the current TSMC camp accounts for the highest proportion of the production process, behind the success is TSMC R & D vice president Wu Xianyang led the team initial development, operation organization senior deputy general manager Qin Yongpei led the team relay optimization yield rate, finally TSMC vice president Liao Yonghao led the team in Wafer 15 B factory successful mass production, the overall development is linked together, cooperation is efficient.

It is reported that TSMC adopts the relay method in the process from research and development of advanced manufacturing process to trial production and actual mass production. On average, two senior engineers will take a younger generation, and they will be better able to pass on the relevant production details and experience than their competitors. As we all know, Know-how in wafer manufacturing is the core secret.

Qin Yongpei, senior deputy general manager of the operation organization, who is known as the "chief engineer of TSMC", TSMC

In terms of intelligent production, TSMC's average engineer is responsible for nearly 100 machines, the use of sensors to analyze data effectively reduces the probability of errors, the introduction of AI manufacturing greatly reduces repetitive work in the production process, and the introduction of these intelligent manufacturing greatly reduces production problems caused by human factors.

The second is the import of EUV. TSMC's 7nm process was not introduced into EUV lithography from the very beginning, but after large-scale mass production, EUV was adopted in the second generation of "N7 +" process and continues to this day.

Lithography machine is the equipment with the highest complexity, the highest precision and the highest price of all semiconductor devices. EUV lithography machine is currently the most advanced lithography machine, only ASML can produce EUV lithography machine, the price is more than 100 million US dollars.

As the first manufacturer in the world to enter the 7nm process, TSMC had no experience in using EUV, and at that time, the use of EUV was also faced with many technologies and industrial chain bottlenecks, such as light source, photoresist, multiple exposure and so on.

To this end, TSMC used DUV to complete the "transitional" 7nm process. After accumulating more contingency experience and reaching a certain scale of EUV procurement and learning related equipment operation experience, TSMC introduced the EUV that the industry had been looking forward to for many years. With the adoption and adjustment of new equipment, new consumables and light sources, TSMC can be more flexible and optimize the EUV production process.

Finally, deepen the cooperation with the quality and reliability departments, quickly connect the quality system needed for automotive applications with the production process, and then enter the automotive market on a large scale. Now TSMC has accepted 70% of the global outsourcing orders for automotive MCU, and the automotive processors of many leading manufacturers such as NXP have also announced the adoption of TSMC 5nm process. It is reported that the leader of the team was he Jun, who joined TSMC in 2017. At that time, TSMC 7nm was trial produced in April. He led a team to analyze and test the development and innovation of methods, and then successfully detected defects in the process and effectively intercepted defective products. Smoothly assist TSMC to speed up the quality of 7nm products and then extend them to 5nm.

In addition to the effective production capacity of the advanced process, what is more important is the customer's trust and willingness to film, and form a complete ecological circle. According to the statistics of TSMC, the overall customer base has exceeded 499. according to industry estimates, TSMC's 16nm and even more advanced customer base is estimated to have more than 200 companies, whose applications cover all aspects of human life.

When all kinds of chips are launched in TSMC, they have gained the advantages brought by the advanced process, and through these products with different applications, TSMC has run smoothly in the manufacturing process, and rapid mass production has helped it firmly grasp its leading position in the market.

The advanced manufacturing process is still continuing, but it is still unknown where the process will go after 2nm and 1nm. Advanced closed testing, new materials and so on will be one of the variables. At that time, the rivers and lakes of wafer foundry will certainly rise again.