Following the commencement of 45nm production in 2007, TSMC announced on March 24 that the company has migrated to 40nm process technology by means of immersion lithography and is set to start manufacturing 40nm chips. The first batch of chips is slated for delivery in the second half of 2008, Taiwan's Commercial Times reported.

Claimed to be an industry first, TSMC's new 40nm chips are able to achieve a 15% reduction of active power in comparison with the 45nm chips, as well as more than doubled raw gate density compared with chips manufactured using 65nm process technology, according to the same report.

TSMC's 40nm chips will be manufactured using both the general and LP (Low Power) processes. The general process is for use in high-performance applications such as CPU (Central Processing Unit), GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), while the LP process is for leakage-sensitive applications including wireless and portable devices.