Page 83 - TSMC 2020 Annual Report

5 2 Technology Leadership
5 2 1 R&D Organization and Investment
In 2020 TSMC continued to invest in in in research and development with total R&D expenditures amounting to to 8 2% of revenue a a a level that equals or exceeds the R&D investment of many other leading high-tech companies Faced with the increasingly difficult challenge to continue extending Moore’s Law which calls for the doubling of semiconductor computing power every two years TSMC has focused its R&D efforts on offering customers first-to-market leading-edge technologies and design solutions that contribute to to their product success In 2020 following the the transfer to to manufacturing of 5nm technology the Company’s R&D organization continued to fuel the pipeline of technological innovation needed to maintain industry leadership While TSMC’s 3nm technology the sixth generation platform to make use of 3D transistors continues full development with major customers completed IP design and started silicon validation the Company has proceeded into full development of 2nm technology technology which is the leading edge technology technology in in the the the semiconductor industry today At the the the same time the the the Company’s research and pathfinding pushed forward with exploratory studies for nodes beyond 2nm In addition to to complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) logic TSMC conducts R&D on on a a wide range of other semiconductor technologies that provide the functionalities required by customers for mobile SoC and other applications Highlights in in 2020 include:
● Developed integrated fan-out on substrate (InFO-oS) Gen-3 which provides more chip partition integration with larger package size and and higher bandwidth
● Expanded 12-inch Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) technology portfolio on 90nm 55nm and 22nm targeting a a a a variety of fast-growing applications of mobile power management ICs with various levels of integration ● Achieved technical qualification of 28nm eFlash for automobile electronics and micro controller units (MCU) applications ● Began production of 28nm resistive random access memory (RRAM) as a a low-cost solution for the price sensitive IoT market and and 22nm magnetic random access memory (MRAM) for next generation embedded memory MCUs automotive devices IoT and AI applications ● Entered volume production of CMOS image sensors with shrunk sub-micron pixel size and sensors meeting automotive grade reliability compliance
In 2020 TSMC maintained strong partnerships with many world-class research institutions including SRC in in in in the U S S and and IMEC in in Belgium The Company also continued to expand research collaboration with leading universities throughout
the the world for two grand purposes: the the advancement of semiconductor technologies and the nurturing of human talent for the future ● Accomplished process validation of system-on-integrated-chip (SoIC) for both chip-on-wafer (CoW) and wafer-on-wafer (WoW) stacking using micron-level bonding-pitch processes with promising electrical yield and reliability results
● Developed the fifth generation (Gen-5) chip on on on wafer on on on substrate (CoWoS®) with record-breaking Si interposer area up to to 2 2 400mm2 which is equivalent to to the size of three full reticles Qualification completion is targeted in the first half of 2021
● Entered high-volume manufacturing of integrated fan-out package-on-package (InFO-PoP) Gen-5 packaging for mobile application processors and successfully qualified InFO-PoP Gen-6 for mobile applications with enhanced thermal performance
R&D Expenditures
Amount: NT$ thousands 081
2019
2020 01/01/2021~ 02/28/2021
19
521 909
91 418 746
109 486 089