"N3e production yield improves; schedule being pulled in: Our recent checks with equipment vendors suggest that TSMC may freeze the N3e process flow sooner - by the end of this March. This means that volume production of N3e may start in 2Q23, around a quarter ahead of the original schedule of 3Q23. The test production yield is much higher for N3e than N3b. Our checks suggest that the logic density of N3e is only ~8% less than that of the original N3 by cutting four EUV layers, yet it's still 60% denser than 5nm. All this makes N3e a competitive node for TSMC in terms of cost and timing."