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TSMC's 2nm process will reportedly get another price hike — $30,000 per wafer for latest cutting-edge tech
(www.tomshardware.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
This is what a lack of competition looks like.
However.... Twice the price of 4nm? The gains are fairly marginal from what I gather. I don't think many will bother.
It's both lack of competition and the end of Moores law. We've effectively reached the end of silicon gate sizes and the tooling complexity required to keep shrinking process nodes and increase transistor density is increasing exponentially, so semiconducters no longer get cheaper... and it's starting to push these cutting edge nodes outside of economic viability for consumer products. I'm sure TSMC is taking a very healthy profit cut for sure but the absolute magic they have to work to have 2nm work at all is beginning to be too much.
I was under the impression that anything under like 10nm was just marketing and doesn't actually refer to transistor density in any meaningful way?
It is marketing and it does have meaningful connection to the litho features, but the connection is not absolute. For example Samsung's 5nm is noticeably more power hungry than TSMC's 5nm.