Alchip Technologies, a contract designer of AI silicon, punches above its weight in leading process nodes. The company expects to join much larger fabless companies with the world’s first 3 nm test chips early next year.

Alchip and other customers of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), such as Nvidia and Qualcomm, are using TSMC’s N3E process design kit (PDK) to evaluate the new node. N3E is an extension of TSMC’s 3 nm process, the latter of which will enter production in the second half of 2022.