Industry's First 2 nm Platform: Marvell Announces Accelerated Infrastructure Silicon with TSMC

Introduction:

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL) continues to assert its leadership in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions. The company’s latest announcement reveals an exciting extension of its collaboration with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to develop the industry’s first technology 2 nm platform capable of producing 2nm semiconductors.

This cutting-edge platform is optimized to drive accelerated infrastructure, promising significant advancements in performance, power efficiency, area utilization, and transistor density.

The Marvell 2 nm Platform:

The Marvell and TSMC’s 2nm semiconductor platform isn’t a physical product itself, but rather a foundation for building high-performance chips. It’s like a blueprint or a toolkit specifically designed for creating powerful and efficient chips for data centers and AI applications.

Here’s a breakdown of what the platform offers:

Building blocks for next-gen chips: It provides essential components like high-speed data connectors, processors, and security features. These are like Lego bricks for chip designers to create custom-made chips for specific needs in data centers and AI.
Optimized for 2nm manufacturing: The platform is specifically designed to leverage the advantages of TSMC’s cutting-edge 2nm fabrication process. This allows for cramming more transistors into a smaller space, leading to significant performance gains.
Focus on efficiency: Smaller transistors typically use less power. This platform helps create chips that are not only powerful but also energy-efficient, reducing operational costs for data centers and minimizing their environmental impact.

In simpler terms, this platform empowers chip designers to build high-performance, power-efficient chips specifically tailored for the demanding workloads of data centers and AI. It’s a significant advancement that paves the way for the next generation of data center infrastructure.

Accelerating Infrastructure with Marvell 2 nm Platform:

Investing in platform components like interconnects and advanced packaging is to enhance infrastructure performance, particularly in the realm of AI (Artificial Intelligence) workloads.

Addressing Data Bottlenecks: By focusing on breakthroughs at the platform level, the aim is to tackle data bottlenecks that could impede overall system performance. These bottlenecks occur when data transfer between components or chips within a system becomes a limiting factor.

Reducing Cost and Time-to-Market: Investing in advanced platform components not only boosts performance but also helps in reducing the cost and time required to bring complex multichip solutions to market. This is crucial in highly competitive industries where speed and efficiency are paramount.

Focus on AI Workloads: Sandeep Bharathi, Marvell’s Chief Development Officer, highlights the increasing importance of AI workloads in tomorrow’s technology landscape. These workloads demand significant improvements in performance, power efficiency, chip area utilization, and transistor density to achieve optimal results.

Positioning with 2nm Platform: Marvell’s focus on a 2nm platform is strategic. This cutting-edge technology enables Marvell to offer highly differentiated analog, mixed-signal, and foundational IP (Intellectual Property) components. These components are essential for building accelerated infrastructure capable of fully realizing the potential of AI applications.

TSMC Collaboration and Technological Advancements:

Marvell’s strategic partnership with TSMC has played a pivotal role in its transition from a fast follower to a leader in advanced node technology for infrastructure silicon.

This collaboration began with the 5nm platform and continued with subsequent milestones. It is including the introduction of several 5nm designs. The first portfolio for infrastructure silicon on TSMC’s 3nm processes.

Kevin Zhang, Senior Vice President of Business Development at TSMC, expressed enthusiasm about the continued collaboration with Marvell.

TSMC proudly pioneers a platform advancing accelerated infrastructure, leveraging its 2nm process technology.

The collaboration aims to develop leading-edge connectivity and compute products utilizing TSMC’s best-in-class process and packaging technologies.

“Tomorrow’s artificial intelligence workloads will require significant and substantial gains in performance, power, area, and transistor density. The 2nm platform will enable Marvell to deliver highly differentiated analog, mixed-signal, and foundational IP to build accelerated infrastructure capable of delivering on the promise of AI. Our partnership with TSMC on our 5nm, 3nm and now 2nm platforms has been instrumental in helping Marvell expand the boundaries of what can be achieved in silicon.”

~ Sandeep Bharathi, Chief Development Officer at Marvell.

Modular Approach to Semiconductor Design R&D with Marvell 2 nm:

Marvell’s adoption of a modular approach to semiconductor design research and development (R&D) involves breaking down the development process into distinct modules or components. This approach allows the company to focus on qualifying foundational analog, mixed-signal IP (Intellectual Property), and advanced packaging technologies first before integrating other elements.

Here’s a breakdown of what this means:

Modular Approach: Instead of tackling the entire semiconductor design process at once, Marvell divides it into smaller, more manageable modules. Each module represents a specific aspect of the design, such as analog and mixed-signal components or packaging technologies.

Qualifying Foundational IP and Packaging: Marvell prioritizes the qualification of foundational analog and mixed-signal IP, which are essential building blocks for semiconductor designs. These components form the core of many electronic systems and are critical for ensuring optimal performance and functionality. Additionally, the company focuses on advanced packaging technologies. Advanced packaging techniques allow for more efficient integration of semiconductor components. This leads to improved performance, smaller form factors, and enhanced reliability.

Expedited Innovation Introduction: By focusing initially on qualifying foundational IP and advanced packaging, Marvell can accelerate the introduction of innovations to the market. This approach enables the company to streamline the development process, reduce time-to-market, and quickly deliver cutting-edge technologies to customers.

Leveraging Process Manufacturing Advances: By adopting a modular approach, Marvell can more easily incorporate process manufacturing advances into its designs. Process manufacturing advancements involve improvements in semiconductor fabrication techniques, such as transitioning to smaller process nodes or implementing novel manufacturing processes. By focusing on foundational IP and packaging first, Marvell can efficiently integrate these process advances into its semiconductor designs, further enhancing performance, efficiency, and competitiveness.

In summary, Marvell’s modular approach to semiconductor design R&D allows the company to prioritize foundational analog, mixed-signal IP, and advanced packaging technologies, leading to expedited innovation introduction and effective integration of process manufacturing advances into its semiconductor designs.

Find the press release here

Conclusion:

The collaboration between Marvell Technology and TSMC on the 2 nm semiconductor platform marks a significant milestone in the development of accelerated infrastructure solutions.

The 2nm platform is set to unleash a new era of performance, efficiency, and innovation. It is contributing to the evolution of AI, cloud data centers, and other critical components of accelerated infrastructure.