Hmm, might as well do a recap, as I'm sure that you're not the only reader wondering 'what's all this nm business in relation to the Switch'
First off, 'x nm'
used to literally refer to the length of one aspect of a transistor, but that stopped being the case for a while now (was the decoupling back in the 90's or 2000's?). The nomenclature continues on as a matter of 'eh, might as well'. They're just labels/branding now.
Next, they can generally be organized in terms of generations. I'll refer to the
ITRS roadmap from 2017 for generation names.
Generally speaking, each generation should offer significant improvements, while nodes that are just refinements/variants within the same generation should offer minor to moderate improvements.
22nm:
TSMC 20nm node is part of this generation. The original Nintendo Switch (v1, Erista) was manufactured on this node. For consistency with the rest of this post, I'll state that this is 0 generations removed from the first Switch.
14nm:
TSMC 16FF/12FF are part of this generation. Switch-wise, v2/Mariko/Redbox/Lite/OLED. 1 generation removed from the start.
(PS4 Slim/Pro were also made on this node, I think?)
I should point out that the TSMC 20->16FF/12FF jump was
huge for power savings, both on paper (probably fair to ballpark it as
2 later generations worth of gains) and in practice, as demonstrated with the v2. There was a major shift in transistor design (the FF stands for FinFET), thus the even better than usual improvement.
10nm:
2 generations removed from the start.
There was a very short lived TSMC 10FF node. On paper, gains weren't shabby actually, but they phased this one out once they got the next generation going.
Samsung's entry here starts with 10 LPE and gets refined over and over. 10LPE->10LPP->8LPP->8LPU. Yes, Samsung's 8nm nodes are just 10nm refinements. Nvidia's Orin is on... one of those Samsung 8 nm nodes. As far as we are aware, Drake's design is an offshoot of Orin, which is why our speculation starts here.
7nm:
3 generations removed from the start.
TSMC's entry here starts with N7, then there are a few variants. N6 is a N7 refinement/variant. On paper, the gains in power efficiency that TSMC advertises for the jump from 16FF/12FF to N7 are... about the same as 20->16FF/12FF. That's more to highlight that wow, 20->16FF/12FF was
good. The PS5/Xbox Series consoles are made on this node family. We are aware that Nvidia has/had some capacity on N7 because of the A100 gpu.
Samsung's entry here starts with 7LPP and also gets refined over and over. 7LPP->(6LPP)->5LPE->5LPP->(4LPE). 6LPP is in parentheses because eventually it disappears from presentations. 4LPE is in parentheses because eventually Samsung reclassifies it to being a member of the next generation
Consensus is that TSMC's the better of the two for this generation.
5nm:
4 generations removed from the start. As of today, this is the latest generation with products out on the market.
For TSMC, the N5 and N4 nodes are part of this generation. N5 started production in 2020, N5P in 2021, N4 this year, and N4P's either later this year or next year. The N5 family is one of the suspects since purportedly, Nvidia spent multiple billions of USD to secure capacity on this family for their next generation of products.
For Samsung, 4LPE and 4LPP are officially their entries in this generation.
Again, consensus is that TSMC's the winner of this generation.
3nm:
5 generations removed from the start.
For TSMC, N3 is expected to start volume production by the end of this year, with products hitting the market next year. TSMC is still using FinFET (the transistor design approach they first started using back in 16FF) here.
For Samsung, 3GAE supposedly started production this week. 3GAP is scheduled for next year. Here, they're attempting Gate-All-Around, which is the next major shift in transistor design.
Obviously, products aren't out yet. But, Samsung's latest promised gains for 3GAE and 3GAP are... not encouraging. The short of it is, if N3 and 3GAP deliver exactly according to the promises of today, I'd expect TSMC to stay winners.
2nm:
6 generations removed from the start. Too far off in the future for Drake, but hell, might as well finish things.
For TSMC, N2 is where they're attempting the transition from FinFET to Gate-All-Around. It is expected to start production in late 2025, so it probably means product in 2026.
As of last October, Samsung claimed that 2GAP will start mass production in 2025.