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When looking for the best selection of process node for a high speed CPU, I come to the conclusions that today, TSMC-28HPC is the right choice:
28FDSOI: Expected to be the best selection from the end of 2015. At this phase, we still don’t see production, so, there is a risk with putting all your eggs in this basket.
16nm/14nm FinFET: No real benefits. Cost is high. Speed-up comparing to 28HPM is not as TSMC claims, due to RC delay on interconnect. Long and expensive design cycle.
TSMC-28HPC:
TSMC claims that performance is as good as 28FDSOI. I guess that they exaggerate, but, certainly, this process can gain power/speed comparing to 28HPM.
Lowest risk. This is just an optimization of 28HPM.
Low cost. Short design cycle.
If performance is close to 28FDSOI, reasonable next step after 28HPC is 14FDSOI.
TSMC 28nm will be hard to beat no matter what version you pick because of the lead they have. Yield is one thing but the amount of silicon proven IP they have is un beatable. And once the big mobile companies move to FinFET there will be a huge amount of capacity available so pricing will be better. Here is more history of 28nm:
