The reach of its chips and the amount of sales it obtains month after month has led TSMC to become the undisputed leader in the chip industry. In this way, the Asian firm leads the sector with an iron hand, as Intel’s stumble and the limited competition offered by companies like Samsung despite their gigantic sales volume have not managed to diminish TSMC’s sales. And, based on the latest news, it seems that this position will continue to grow in the coming years and, consequently, could directly affect our wallets.
As indicated by the portal TechSpot in a recent publication, TSMC intends to charge €27,500 for each wafer manufactured with its 2nm process. In this way, the Taiwanese company has given the green light to a 50% increase over the 3nm wafers and, in turn, a 200% increase over the price of the 4 and 5nm wafers it launched at the time. Thus, TSMC ensures that semiconductor manufacturing is a more complex process due to factors such as specialized software, more labor, and a greater dependence on EUV lithography, and therefore, the selling price will increase considerably.
Artificial intelligence plays a major role
Although the process is more costly, it is expected that AI-assisted design will help mitigate some of the economic impact. Thus, according to initial estimates, a 2nm production plant has the capacity to produce 50,000 wafers per month, an operation that translates into a monthly expenditure of almost €28 billion (above the almost €20 billion of the 3nm plants). In this way, although technology advances, the cost per transistor has remained stagnant since the generation of 28nm, a situation that has driven the increase in the price of advanced chips.
Regarding the 2nm chips, it is expected that they will offer a reduction in energy consumption of between 25% and 30%, a performance increase ranging from 10%-15%, and lastly, up to 15% in terms of transistor density compared to 3nm. Thus, TSMC intends to start production in the second half of 2025 and, at the moment, companies like Apple have already shown interest in these options to take advantage of devices like the iPhone 17 Pro line.
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