Designing chips for contemporary, modern manufacturing applied sciences is an costly endeavor. Still, dozens of firms have already adopted TSMCs N3 and N3E (3 nm-class) fabrication processes, in keeping with disclosures made by TSMC and Synopsys.

“Synopsys IP for TSMC’s 3nm process has been adopted by dozens of leading companies to accelerate their development time, quickly achieve silicon success and speed their time to market,” mentioned John Koeter, senior vice chairman of promoting and technique for IP at Synopsys.

TSMC has been producing chips utilizing its newest N3 (aka N3B) fabrication expertise (with as much as 25 EUV layers and help for EUV double patterning) since late 2022 and intends to begin making merchandise on its simplified N3E manufacturing course of (with as much as 19 EUV layers and with out EUV double patterning) in This autumn 2023. 

Previously, TSMC disclosed that its N3 nodes had been adopted by designers of high-performance computing (HPC) and smartphone SoCs and that the variety of adopters was larger in comparison with N5 early in its lifecycle. Meanwhile, TSMC by no means talked about the variety of firms that had determined to make use of its 3 nm-class fabrication processes.

Synopsys is a serious IP developer and digital design automation instruments supplier, so it means loads when it says that dozens of firms have licensed its IP for TSMC’s N3 fabrication applied sciences. But Synopsys will not be the one IP designer on the market, and corporations like Cadence additionally equipped their N3-compatible IP to different fabless chip builders. It is secure to say that the variety of their purchasers can also be important.

TSMC’s N3 household of course of applied sciences contains baseline N3 (N3B), relaxed N3E with a bit lowered transistor density however widened course of window for higher yields, performance-enhanced N3P that’s IP suitable with N3E might be manufacturing prepared within the second half of 2024, and N3X for terribly high-performance functions which are due in 2025. 

The IP licensed by Synopsys proper now can be utilized for N3, N3E, and N3P manufacturing nodes.

Sources: Synopsys