At a conference in Silicon Valley on Wednesday, TSMC unveiled new software that will enable automotive chip designers to start work on their designs about two years sooner. That will enable those companies to use the automotive version of TSMC's N3 chipmaking technology - which is the current state of the art in consumer devices - as soon as the automotive-grade variant becomes available from TSMC in 2025. "Historically, auto stayed far, far behind consumer," Kevin Zhang, vice president of business development at TSMC, said during a press conference. "That is the past.