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MediaTek Discussion

Daniel Nenni

Daniel Nenni

Admin
Staff member
Anybody here following MediaTek? Here is a quick JP Morgan blurb:

MediaTek expects chip sales to grow 20% YoY in 2015, Tencent Tech reports. MediaTek expects its chip sales to grow 20% YoY in 2015, its General Manager Xie Qingjiang told Tencent Tech at the Consumer Electronics Show. Xie said the company's total shipment of LTE chips will exceed that of 3G chips in 2015. He also said MediaTek is expecting to ship chips supporting the FDD-LTE network in Q1, and ship six-mode chips in Q3 2015.

I'm quite familiar with this company and can tell you that they have completed the transition from a trailing edge fabless semiconductor company to a leading edge one. I'm not a financial person but technology wise this is a company to watch, absolutely.

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I agree. Anyway, I haven't seen any real move to a lower node so far. My bet is that they will stay at 28nm for the full 2015 and probably also for the 2016.
They have already 8 cores 64bit enabled chips and their performance is extremely good.
As soon as the 20nm and 14nm will become cheaper, probably they will start to produce some SoC. They are the masters of the low margin, and they are damned good at that.
 
astilo said:
I agree. Anyway, I haven't seen any real move to a lower node so far. My bet is that they will stay at 28nm for the full 2015 and probably also for the 2016.
They have already 8 cores 64bit enabled chips and their performance is extremely good.
As soon as the 20nm and 14nm will become cheaper, probably they will start to produce some SoC. They are the masters of the low margin, and they are damned good at that.
Click to expand...

Other than Apple, QCOM, and Xilinx I do not see too many fabless companies shipping FINFETs this year. 2016 for sure, MediaTek included. Remember, MediaTek is right down the street from TSMC so they certainly do have access. You should also know that MediaTek has been hiring TSMC employees very aggressively of late.

TSMC has significant 20nm volume shipping right now with Apple and that will slow dramatically in 2016. That capacity will be quickly switched to 16nm FF+ and I seriously doubt that it will not be fully utilized.

I'm at the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium this week so I should have a much clearer picture of the FinFET landscape. CLiff Hou and Jack Sun from TSMC are here, Mark Bohr from Intel, An Steegen, T.J Rodgers, definitely an A list crowd. SEMI even has an attendee list up:

ISS 2015 Attendees | SEMI.ORG
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Other than Apple, QCOM, and Xilinx I do not see too many fabless companies shipping FINFETs this year.
Click to expand...
Not even Nvidia? I thought they were on the list of early adopters.
Edit:
I have being wondering about Qualcomm. The 20nm Snapdragon 810 SoC has been delayed, because of heating problems. That might throw a spanner in their schedule for future products - i.e. maybe no FinFets in 2015.
Also, there is no mention of any 14/16nm SoC on any of the roadmaps.
 
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MediaTek uses UMC, which means they'll be on 28nm for a while I assume? When is UMC planning on joining the FinFET party? 2016, 2017?

How does UMC 28nm compare to TSMC? Are they running HKMG or is it SiON gates?
 
benb said:
MediaTek uses UMC, which means they'll be on 28nm for a while I assume? When is UMC planning on joining the FinFET party? 2016, 2017?

How does UMC 28nm compare to TSMC? Are they running HKMG or is it SiON gates?
Click to expand...


MediaTek uses TSMC too.

TSMC 16FinFET Plus Process Achieves Risk Production Milestone

"TSMC is a trusted technology partner, helping to drive MediaTek’s success over the past decade to deliver market leading SoCs,” said CJ Hsieh, President of MediaTek. “With TSMC’s first ever FinFET 3D architecture and enhanced plus version, MediaTek advances mobile and home entertainment SoCs demonstrating even faster speed, optimized power and reduced chip size. The performance boosts and power reduction for MediaTek’s processors and modem technologies, compared to previous generations, has proven TSMC’s 16FF+ to be a highly competitive process technology for our chipsets.”
 
Very interesting PR information, thanks. The list of quotes from Mediatek, Nvida, Renasas, Freescale, Xilinx, LG and Avago supporting 16nm TSMC node is a full sandbox of the top companies. A list like this makes me think of the names not included: TI, Apple, AMD, Marvell, Altera, Infineon, ST, Panasonic, Sony, IBM. Panasonic and Altera have made indications of joining Intel's sandbox. AMD and IBM are in GF's sandbox. Besides winning Apple's A9, who else will join Samsung's sandbox?

Returning to UMC: As 28nm designs migrate to 16 or 14nm, what will happen to UMC and SMIC?
 
benb said:
Very interesting PR information, thanks. The list of quotes from Mediatek, Nvida, Renasas, Freescale, Xilinx, LG and Avago supporting 16nm TSMC node is a full sandbox of the top companies. A list like this makes me think of the names not included: TI, Apple, AMD, Marvell, Altera, Infineon, ST, Panasonic, Sony, IBM. Panasonic and Altera have made indications of joining Intel's sandbox. AMD and IBM are in GF's sandbox. Besides winning Apple's A9, who else will join Samsung's sandbox?

Returning to UMC: As 28nm designs migrate to 16 or 14nm, what will happen to UMC and SMIC?
Click to expand...

QCOM will be a big Samsung 14nm customer. Second only to Apple is my guess.

UMC is working on 14nm licensed from IBM. My guess is that they will have FinFETs in 2016. Remember, UMC is a second source manufacturer so it is not unusual for them to be behind TSMC. SMIC has also licensed 14nm from IBM. I think SMIC will implement 28nm FD-SOI in between 28 HKMG and finFETS for the low cost Chinese mobile market.

UMC has both Polysion and HKMG.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
QCOM will be a big Samsung 14nm customer. Second only to Apple is my guess.

UMC is working on 14nm licensed from IBM. My guess is that they will have FinFETs in 2016. Remember, UMC is a second source manufacturer so it is not unusual for them to be behind TSMC. SMIC has also licensed 14nm from IBM. I think SMIC will implement 28nm FD-SOI in between 28 HKMG and finFETS for the low cost Chinese mobile market.

UMC has both Polysion and HKMG.
Click to expand...

Not sue SMIC can get 14nm technology transfer so quick. I believe there is a consortium (Western countries+Taiwan+Korea+Japan) regulates the speed and type of technology transfer to communist countries, such as PRC.
 
That makes 28nm FD-SOI all the more likely at SMIC, as the State Department would likely be lenient when making the 28nm bulk to 28nm SOI comparison. Incredible how the US State Department regulates the semiconductor industry of China, under the standard of dual-use technology.

The fab Samsung built in Xian can run 40nm (VNAND flash); that could be the current threshold for new technology transfers.
 
benb said:
That makes 28nm FD-SOI all the more likely at SMIC, as the State Department would likely be lenient when making the 28nm bulk to 28nm SOI comparison. Incredible how the US State Department regulates the semiconductor industry of China, under the standard of dual-use technology.

The fab Samsung built in Xian can run 40nm (VNAND flash); that could be the current threshold for new technology transfers.
Click to expand...

The FD-SOI Technology comes from France so why would our State Department be involved?
 
France likely wouldn't restrict this, under loose international agreements. But any equipment or materials of US origin must pass the muster. Missing one key piece of equipment or material could have a significant impact.

The US policy is to maintain a 2 generation lead over China, for military purposes.
 
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