TSMC shows off new tech for stitching together bigger, faster chips

By Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney

SANT CLARA, California (Reuters) -Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co on Wednesday unveiled technology for making faster chips and putting them together in dinner-plate sized packages that will boost performance needed for artificial intelligence applications.

It said its A14 manufacturing technology will arrive in 2028 and will be able to produce processors that are 15% faster at the same power consumption as its N2 chips due to enter production this year or will use 30% less power at the same speed as the N2 chips.

The world's biggest contract manufacturer, which counts Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices as clients, added that its forthcoming "System on Wafer-X" will be able to weave together at least 16 large computing chips, as well as memory chips and fast optical interconnections and new technology to deliver thousands of watts of power to the chips.

By comparison, Nvidia's current flagship graphics processing units consist of two large chips stitched together and its "Rubin Ultra" GPUs due out in 2027 will stitch four together.

TSMC plans to build two factories to carry out the work near its chip plants in Arizona.

Intel, which is working to build out a contract manufacturing business to compete with TSMC, is due to announce new manufacturing technologies next week. Last year, it claimed it would overtake TSMC in making the world's fastest chips.

Demand for massive AI chips that are packaged together has shifted the battleground between the two firms from simply making fast chips to integrating them - a complex task that requires working closely with customers.

"They're both neck and neck. You're not going to pick one over the other because they have the technological lead," said Dan Hutcheson, vice chair at analyst firm TechInsights.

"You're going to pick one over the other for different reasons."

Customer service, pricing and how much wafer allocation can be obtained are likely to influence a company's decision about which chip manufacturer would be best for them.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Max Cherney in Santa Clara, California; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)