As the final announcement for this week’s North American Tech Symposium, TSMC capped off its fab roadmap update with some fresh news on automotive-centric processes. For automotive customers, TSMC is preparing to offer a new pair of specialized process nodes for the market, N4AE and N3AE. Start early with design and/or manufacturing.
The automotive industry is notoriously conservative when it comes to chip manufacturing, as it is expected to meet much higher standards in terms of safety and reliability. Unsurprisingly, the automotive industry is traditionally a generation behind him in terms of the silicon lithography process node used, waiting for it to become a truly proven process. That said, the trend towards software-defined vehicles is rapidly increasing demand for higher performance processors and more chips, prompting the industry to close the gap a bit and move to new nodes sooner. It has been.
To meet that anticipated demand, TSMC this week announced its Automotive Early (AE) manufacturing process, which aims to give automakers an early start in designing new chips for leading-edge nodes. . TSMC’s N3AE (3nm-class) and N4AE (4nm-class) technologies are the fundamental stepping stones to develop a complete automotive-grade N3A process, which is expected to offer consumer-grade reliability and automotive-specific A process design kit is included. (PDK) are based on N3E and N4P respectively.
For customers who require traditional, reliable automotive-grade chips, chip designers can start developing automotive-grade products with N3AE later this year. This product will be manufactured at his N3A production node which is fully qualified automotive grade. in a few years. Also, customers who want to get the chip to market sooner to drive non-critical systems in the car, such as digital cockpits and other non-critical systems, can plan to start production with N4AE. Production on the Automotive Early node means giving up some of the benefits of a fully qualified automotive process node. So basically building a chip closer to consumer grade. 1 year early.
Traditionally, car manufacturers and developers of automotive-grade electronics have required their chips to be both quality and reliable in terms of functional safety. ASIL system) and physical robustness (classified by AEC-Q100 standard). Improving the physical robustness of the chip requires process technology and design rules specifically developed/tuned to meet these higher requirements. It usually takes him two to three years for foundries and their automotive chip partners to develop automotive-grade process technology. For example, TSMC has been producing chips for smartphones and his PC since 2020 on his N5 (5nm class) manufacturing process, while his automotive-grade N5A will finally be ready this year.
At the same time, not all systems in vehicles must comply with the strictest integrity and reliability standards. For example, the chips that power infotainment, digital cockpits, and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) need not be AEC-Q100 Grade 1 (-40°C to +150°C temperature capable). These systems also tend to require a lot of processing power, so they benefit greatly from state-of-the-art nodes.
TSMC said its N3AE (3nm Auto Early) will launch in 2023, offering an automotive process design kit (PDK) based on N3E. This will allow customers to start designing on his 3nm node dedicated to automotive applications, eventually leading him to his N3A process, which is expected to be fully qualified for automotive use in 2025. be connected.
Meanwhile, N4AE is available as an option for customers in a hurry. The N4AE will be based on TSMC’s existing N4P process technology and the customer will be able to start production on N4AE one year early in 2024. Perhaps given its legacy from N4P, N4AE is also a good candidate for incorporating the IP he already designed for N4P. (already piled up), further reducing time to market.
TSMC has not mentioned any customers interested in using its N3AE and N4AE process technology for automotive SoCs, but has been providing high performance and feature-rich automotive SoCs for years. I have several customers who I suspect have been
