TSMC started to produce chips on its performance-enhanced N3P (3rd Generation 3nm-class) process technology in the fourth quarter of 2024, as planned, the company revealed at its North American Technology Symposium 2025. N3P succeeds N3E and targets client and data center applications that require enhanced performance while retaining 3nm-class IP. The technology will be succeeded by N3X in the second half of this year.
TSMC's N3P is an optical shrink of N3E that retains design rules and IP compatibility while offering 5% higher performance at the same leakage or 5% – 10% lower power at identical frequencies, along with a 4% transistor density boost for designs with a typical mix of logic, SRAM, and analog blocks. As N3P's density gain comes from improved optics, it enables better scaling across all chip structures, particularly benefiting SRAM-heavy high-performance designs. N3P is now in production — so the company is currently building up products on this technology for its lead customers.
