TSMC to Begin 7 nm Trial Production in 2017

btarunr · Apr 22, 2016

Taiwan's premier semiconductor foundry TSMC could begin 7 nanometer (nm) trial production in as early as the first half of 2017. Co-CEO Mark Liu, speaking at the company's investor-meet held earlier this month, stated that TSMC is currently engaging with over 20 companies on 7 nm development, with over 15 tape-outs within 2017, leading up to volume-production by early-2018. In the run-up to 7 nm, the company is also developing a 10 nm node for lower-powered devices (eg: mobile baseband). The company has already begun tape-outs of 10 nm chips in Q1-2016. TSMC is currently handling volume-production of 16 nm FinFET Plus chips.

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FordGT90Concept · Apr 22, 2016

TSMC pass up Intel when Intel is clearly struggling? They're being way too optimistic.

dj-electric · Apr 22, 2016

Intel is... not struggling. its just a bit lazy. its 10nm facility is at full speed these days. 7nm and 5nm are on their way.

Frick · Apr 22, 2016

Dj-ElectriC said:
Intel is... not struggling. its just a bit lazy. its 10nm facility is at full speed these days. 7nm and 5nm are on their way.

As I understand it going below what we're at now has proven much more difficult than expected.

EDIT: IBM made a 7nm chip last year, but I have no idea if it's actually marketable yet.

EDIT again: It's not.

Also,

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/ibm-unveils-industrys-first-7nm-chip-moving-beyond-silicon/

EDIT Redux: And apparently that IBM chip was not even a logical, functioning chip.

trog100 · Apr 22, 2016

the last intel die shrink (skylake) never seemed to produce that much.. maybe the next one wont ether..

the law of diminishing returns always seem to kicks in somewhere along the line..

trog

happita · Apr 22, 2016

trog100 said:
the last intel die shrink (skylake) never seemed to produce that much.. maybe the next one wont ether..

the law of diminishing returns always seem to kicks in somewhere along the line..

trog

In terms of CPU performance, no it didn't, but they've made some good headway with their integrated GPU in recent years.

I fear that future die shrinks will only be more of the same.

yogurt_21 · Apr 22, 2016

Frick said:
As I understand it going below what we're at now has proven much more difficult than expected.

EDIT: IBM made a 7nm chip last year, but I have no idea if it's actually marketable yet.

EDIT again: It's not.

Also,

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/ibm-unveils-industrys-first-7nm-chip-moving-beyond-silicon/

EDIT Redux: And apparently that IBM chip was not even a logical, functioning chip.

article from 2015 says real chips are 2 years away... uses it as evidence against tmsc being able to hit volume production by 2018...

primary school wasn't kind to you.

Frick · Apr 22, 2016

yogurt_21 said:
article from 2015 says real chips are 2 years away... uses it as evidence against tmsc being able to hit volume production by 2018...

primary school wasn't kind to you.

It wasn't.

The point was to illustrate that they are not being lazy, that it's really rather difficult to make progress.

TheGuruStud · Apr 22, 2016

TSMC>smoke>bum

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TSMC to Begin 7 nm Trial Production in 2017

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

dj-electric

Frick

Fishfaced Nincompoop

trog100

happita

yogurt_21

Frick

Fishfaced Nincompoop

TheGuruStud

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