TSMC shows new 1.4-nanometer chips

The world’s largest semiconductor-ready TSMC presented its new A14 process technology on its 2025 technology symposium. In the future, architectures with a structure width of 1.4 nanometers will be produced with this.

Ready for use from 2028

The new process generation is based on the second generation of Gate-All-Around (GAA) nanosheet transistors and for the first time integrates the nanoflex pro technology, which is intended to enable particularly flexible design adjustments. As a result, TSMC wants to set new standards for performance, energy efficiency and transistor density.

According to Kevin Zhang, responsible for business development at TSMC, A14 technology should deliver up to 15 percent more computing power with the same energy consumption compared to the current 2-NM technology (N2). Alternatively, the energy requirement can be reduced by up to 30 percent – with the same performance. Improvements of up to 23 percent are also expected in the transistor density.

Serial maturity is to reach the new manufacturing technology in 2028 – but initially without so -called “backside power delivery”, i.e. power supply on the back of the chip. An extended variant with this function, which enables more complex and efficient des production, is planned for 2029. Although A14 initially starts without a rear-sized power supply, TSMC still sees great potential in technology, especially for applications in the areas of client computing, edge devices and specialized chips, in which the advantages of backside power delivery do not justify the higher effort. For high-performance and data center applications, TSMC plans to submit the back power supply in a future A14 variant- presumably under the name A14P.

New chip design

A central feature of the new platform is Nanoflex Pro: This technology enables chip developers to combine different standard cells flexibly and thus achieve a better balance between performance, energy consumption and chi surface. So far, however, details on the delimitation compared to the previous Nanoflex technology have not been published.

The new A14 technology is a completely new production node that is not compatible with older standards and requires new software tools and design adjustments. A market launch is expected for the first half of 2028, in good time for product launches in the second half of the year. At the moment it also looks like the schedule is to be observed – according to TSMC, the current committee quotas are better than what was expected for the current level of development.