TSMC’s plans for the coming years remain largely unchanged, with the company set to begin mass production of chips using its N2 (2 nm) manufacturing technology by late 2025 and its A16 (1.6 nm) process by late 2026. These updates were shared during the company’s Open Innovation Platform (OIP) 2024 conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
“The roadmap you see here is nearly the same, in fact, it’s the same technological roadmap you likely saw at our technology symposium six months ago,” said Dan Kochpatcharin, head of design infrastructure management at TSMC. “We have N2 and N2P, which will enter production over the next couple of years, followed by A16.”
The phrasing “followed by” and the accompanying slide showing A16 succeeding N2P and N2X have caused some confusion. While the slide is nearly identical to the one presented in May, the earlier announcement suggested that A16, N2P, and N2X would become available around the same time.
From a technical perspective, N2, N2P, N2X, and A16 share several similarities. All are based on GAA (gate-all-around) transistor architecture. The N2 series incorporates ultra-high-performance metal-insulator-metal (SHPMIM) capacitors to reduce transistor resistance and enhance efficiency, while A16 introduces backside power delivery (BSPDN) for improved power management.
