Exactly. N5 is sort of an outlier, it's a process where a bunch of technology bets and manufacturing investment all came together to produce a big leap in competitive positioning. It's the same kind of thing we saw with Intel 22nm[1], where Ivy Bridge was just wiping the floor with the rest of the industry.
Improvements since have been modest, to the extent that N3 is only barely any better (c.f. the Apple M3 is... still a really great CPU, but not actually that much of an upgrade over the M2).
There's a hole for Intel to aim at now. We'll see.
[1] Also 32nm and 45nm, really. It's easy to forget now, but Intel strung together a just shocking number of dominant processes in the 00's.
The reason N5 came together for TSMC is because they run more experiments per unit time than Intel does. They're doing this 24 hours a day across multiple shifts, which makes it possible for them to improve a given process faster. It remains to be seen if Intel can actually pull ahead or not without a major culture change, or if "this time" they can succeed at becoming a trusted foundry partner that can drive enough volume to support the ongoing investment needed in leading edge fabs.
Improvements since have been modest, to the extent that N3 is only barely any better (c.f. the Apple M3 is... still a really great CPU, but not actually that much of an upgrade over the M2).
There's a hole for Intel to aim at now. We'll see.
[1] Also 32nm and 45nm, really. It's easy to forget now, but Intel strung together a just shocking number of dominant processes in the 00's.