According to ANANDTECH, TSMC said last week that "technical development is progressing smoothly at 3nm, and we have already contacted early customers on technology definitions," CC Wei, CEO and co-chairman of TSMC, is working with investors and financial analysts. Said on the conference call. "We hope that our 3nm technology will further expand our leadership position in the future." It seems that TSMC's manufacturing technology has moved away from the pathfinding model and has begun to work with early customers.

Because its 3nm technology is still in the early stage of development, TSMC has not yet discussed the specific characteristics of the process and its advantages over 5nm. But in fact, TSMC has confirmed that 3nm is a new process technology, not a 5nm improvement or iteration. TSMC said that the company has evaluated all possible transistor structure options for 3nm and provided its customers with "very good solutions." The specification is under development and the company believes it will meet the requirements of its leading partner customers.

On April 18, 2019, in the first quarter earnings report held by TSMC, TSMC pointed out that 3nm technology has entered the stage of comprehensive development. Analyst Wang Zhaoli believes that the main applications of powerful 3nm chips will be cloud computing, artificial intelligence and 5G. Apple, Huawei, Google and Nvidia may become potential customers of TSMC's new chips.

At the same time, it can be said with certainty that TSMC's 3nm node will use both DUV and EUV lithography equipment. Since TSMC uses 14 EUV layers at 5 nm, the number of layers used for 3 nm may be higher. The world's largest semiconductor contract manufacturer seems to be very happy with its EUV development and believes the technology is critical to its future.

Although the details of the 3nm technology are not disclosed too much, in the construction of the factory, TSMC is progressing rapidly.

In December 2018, according to Taiwan news reports, TSMC has been allowed to start building a new chip factory in the Southern Science Park in Tainan. TSMC plans to invest NT$600 billion (US$19.5 billion) in the construction of a new plant, which is scheduled to begin in 2020. The chip maker is expected to enter production trials in 2021 and begin mass production in 2022, ready to enter the latest phones and tablets. The new plant is planned to be built in the Tainan South Taiwan Science and Technology Park and will be side by side with TSMC's 5nm chip factory, which will be completed in early 2020.

In July 2019, the relevant departments of Taiwan issued an announcement stating that they had reviewed and passed the TSMC 3 Nano Baoshan Plant City Plan Change Case, and it is expected that TSMC will invest more than 600 billion yuan to build the 3 nm Baoshan Plant. This has accelerated the construction of TSMC's factory.