AMD and Nvidia’s foundry of choice, TSMC, has said it will recruit 3,000 new people to support its expanding business. The semiconductor manufacturing company was one of the first to get its 7nm process node up-and-running, and aims to do the same with 5nm and 3nm. But, in order to shrink transistors down, it will have to first scale its recruitment efforts considerably up.
Most notable amongst TSMC’s clients is AMD, at least to us gamers, who utilises the pure-play foundry for its 7nm Radeon RX 5700-series GPUs and Ryzen 3000 CCDs. It is, however, not responsible for the cIOD die – that remains on GlobalFoundries’ 12nm process. Nvidia is similar a key player making use of the foundry’s leading position, utilising TSMC’s 12nm process for its efficient Turing GPUs.
But to stay on top you must maintain momentum. Samsung is hot on TSMC’s tail, and recently announced it would be spending an ungodly amount of money, $115bn, over the next decade to firm up its contract manufacturing business – which puts it in direct contention with TSMC. Both AMD and Nvidia have been rumoured at some point to be making the swap to Samsung for future processors, although these claims remain largely unsubstantiated so far.
TSMC is intent on hiring semiconductor equipment engineers, R&D engineers, process engineers, process integration engineers, and production line operators. Positions are all based in either Hsinchu, Taichung, or Tainan.
“After successfully bringing its industry-leading 7nm logic technology to volume production, TSMC is ceaselessly advancing with development of 5nm and 3nm logic technology,” a press release reads (via EETimes). “This year, the company continues to develop new technologies and build capacity to help customers unleash innovation and create maximum value with a comprehensive portfolio of advanced logic and speciality technologies…. Accordingly, TSMC is recruiting broadly from both experienced professionals and first-time job seekers with backgrounds in electronics, electrical engineering, opto-electronics, mechanical engineering, physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, industrial engineering, and related fields to come on board and keep moving semiconductor technology forward.”
Apple is also utilising TSMC for 7nm, which, due to the finite nature of semiconductor production, had raised questions over whether AMD would be able to net enough capacity for its entier 7nm portfolio, now both GPUs and CPUs, to meet demand. This has been largely diffused by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, who told investors during the company’s Q2 2019 earning call that it was “not constrained per se” by TSMC.
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Header image courtesy of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.