The 2 nm node will be One of the most expensive in the history of semiconductors. This node will be the next evolution within the technology industry, and TSMC is the company that has made the most advances so far to have it prepared at the end of this year.
Only a few companies will have the opportunity to be the first to access the 2 Nm node to manufacture their chips, and those lucky ones will have to accept a high Price per wafer, since according to a well -known Taiwanese newspaper TSMC has elevated the price of each chips wafer in 2 Nm up to 30,000 dollars.
So that you can compare, in 2020 a wafer manufactured in the 5 Nm node, which at that time was the most advanced of the moment, I had a TSMC cost of 16,988 dollarsand a chips wafer in 7 Nm cost $ 9,346.
If we make numbers, we can conclude that A wafer with chips manufactured in the 2 Nm node will cost almost double that one manufactured in the 5 Nm node At the time of its launch, that is, when this node was a novelty and enjoyed its maximum peak of popularity.
It is important to compare prices at the time of launch, Because over time the nodes are overcome by more advanced ones, and the cost per wafer is reduced to adjust to demand and advances that facilitate its production and reduce costs.
TSMC justifies the climb talking about mass costs
And not of the production costs of each wafer, but of The costs you had to assume to build the factories where those wafers with 2 Nm chips are “cooked”, which in theory can reach 725 million dollars.
Although the price of each wafer is enormous, the big companies in the sector, among which we can highlight giants such as NVIDIA, AMD, Apple, Qualcomm and Broadcom will begin to make orders to TSMC in the second half of this year to be one of the first to use the most advanced node of the moment.
It is very likely that Nvidia uses the 2 Nm node In its next generation of high performance GPUS for the professional sector (AI, data centers and servers), but in consumption we should not expect anything that goes beyond 3 Nm. With regard to AMD, the company has already used the 3 Nm node in its EPYC Turin processors, but the Ryzen 9000 use the 4 Nm node, and its RX 9000 Radeon employ the N4P node of TSMC, so we can be sure that they will only use the 2 Nm node in the next EPYC Turin.
By this I do not mean that the 2 Nm node will not arrive broadly to the general consumption market, but it is clear that it will only do so in the long term, and that companies will prioritize their use in professional solutions, Something totally logical for a matter of cost and profitability.
And how does that affect me?
As a consumer, the cost of silicon wafers affects you because semiconductors are usually the most expensive components of consumer technology you Buy. If these are increasingly expensive, The technology you buy will also end up rising price sooner or later.
I give you an example, imagine that the processor and the GPU that mounts PS5 has a production cost of about 150 euros, a chip that is manufactured in the 6 NM node. Now we go to the future, and we have a newly launched PS6 with an APU that is manufactured in the 3 nm node.
As a much more advanced node uses the cost per wafer is greater, which makes the production cost of that APU increase. If the price difference is 100 euros more for each APU, this will result in an increase in the sales price of the console, which could be completely impacted as a consumer. That is to say, You would have to pay at least 100 euros more for that console.
The future does not look good: increasingly expensive transistors
Returning to the 2 -NM node of TSMC, the price difference between this and a wafer manufactured in 2 Nm is 66%, and the next nodes are expected to be even more expensive, which means that The cost of transistors will only increaseas much as we see node reductions that increase the density of transistors.
The most advanced technology will be every time more expensive, and access to the most advanced nodes will be somewhat exclusive and reserved only a few technological giants, those who have more resources and who manage to close the best agreements with TSMC.
There is still nothing safe, but wafers in nodes lower than 2 Nm, such as 1.6 Nm and 1.4 Nm They are between 45,000 and $ 50,000respectively. We already said it several years ago, the jump to the 2 nm node and later looked as possible, but complicated at the economic level.
