On April 25, TSMC announced its name as "A16" on Wednesday.BestcryptogamestomakemoneyThe new chip manufacturing technology will go into mass production in the second half of 2026, marking another escalation of the battle between TSMC and longtime rival Intel over who will be able to make the world's fastest chips.
As the world's top foundry, TSMC is a key chip supplier to technology giants such as Nvidia and Apple. TSMC announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said artificial intelligence chip makers could be the first adopters of A16 technology rather than smartphone makers.
Analysts pointed out that the new technology released by TSMC could shake Intel's February declaration of "using 14A technology to regain the throne of chip performance." Kevin Zhang, senior vice president of business development at TSMC, said the company's new A16 chip manufacturing process was being developed faster than expected due to demand from artificial intelligence chip companies, but he did not disclose specific customer information.
Kevin Zhang stressed: "AI chip companies are eager to optimize their design to give full play to the full performance of our process." He also said that TSMC does not think it is necessary to use the latest "high numerical aperture (High NA) EUV lithography machine" from ASML of the Netherlands to make A16 chips. Intel revealed last week that it plans to take the lead in using these value 3.Bestcryptogamestomakemoney. 7.3 billion US dollars (IT Home Note: currently about 2.708 billion yuan) a machine to develop its 14A chip.
It is worth mentioning that TSMC also demonstrated a power supply technology that will be put into use in 2026, which can power the chip from the back of the chip, thus helping to speed up the operation of artificial intelligence chips. Intel has previously announced similar power supply technology and sees it as one of its core competitive advantages.
Analysts are skeptical of Intel's previous championship declaration. "it's debatable," said Dan Hutcheson, vice president of TechInsights Analytics. "at least on some indicators, I don't think they are ahead."
However, Kevin Krewell, chief analyst at TIRIAS Research, cautioned that both Intel and TSMC's technology are still years away from practical application, and that actual chips need to be proved to be up to the level of performance announced at the press conference.
[source: home of IT]
