Wafer demand is surging, driven by the ramp of 7- and 5-nm process nodes that are boosting foundry revenue on a per-wafer basis.
www.eetasia.com, Mar. 18, 2021 –
Who says Moore's Law is dead?
Wafer demand is surging, driven by the ramp of 7- and 5-nm process nodes that are boosting foundry revenue on a per-wafer basis, reports IC Insights.
Those advanced nodes are increasingly being used for logic ICs along with advanced memory chips, including DRAM and flash memory components as data center customers migrate to all-flash storage.
"Many fabless IC companies are clamoring to have their leading-edge devices, including high-performance microprocessors, low-power application processors and other advanced logic devices fabricated using 7-nm and 5-nm process nodes," the market tracker noted in an early March research note.
Despite steep development costs, smaller nodes are generating greater revenues on a per-wafer basis. The chief beneficiary is once more Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the only pure-play foundry running both 7- and 5-nm production lines last year. IC Insights expects TSMC and Samsung Electronics to enter volume production at the 3-nm node by 2022.