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TSMC starts mass production of 16FF+ in 2Q15

Although not unexpected, the following news does not appear to be official announcement.


Back in November last year, I had speculated that TSMC’s 16FF+ may start volume production in 2Q15.

11-19-2014

In reality, the 16FF+ volume production most likely will start in early 2Q15 or late 1Q15; that is, a quarter earlier than announced.

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/f293/samsung-strikes-chip-deal-apple-4864-post16870.html#post16870
 
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This would be a welcome surprise. If I remember correctly TSMC first posted 20nm revenue in June 2014. This would put 16ff+ one year out which is truly impressive. Since TSMC breaks out revenue per node this will be easy to verify. I will be in Taiwan next week and will check to see if this is true.
 
What happened to 16FF (no +), BTW?

I believe 16FF, as a stepping stone to 16FF+, has been retired. The TSMC 16nm is 16FF+. Tape-out’s of 16FF will actually produce from 16FF+. The tape-out’s are compatible. Also refer to the following posts:

Phrased approach and high initial yield of 16FF+
https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/f293/samsung-strikes-chip-deal-apple-4864-2.html#post16998
https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/f293/samsung-strikes-chip-deal-apple-4864-3.html#post17016
 
Yes, 16FF+ has the same groundrules of 16FF. But it is supposedly 15% faster. How can you just fabricate wafers on the 16FF+ process with a design and tape-out that was made in 16FF?
 
HiSilicon Technologies, the silicon division of China telecom giant Huawei, taped out at TSMC a 16nm quad A72 device with more than 50 million instances. It has a 16nm A57 device also made in the fab and already shipping in systems, said Mary Ann White, director of product marketing for Synopsys’ Galaxy Design Platform.

March 10, 2015
FinFETs Race Toward Silicon | EE Times
 
No, TSMC's 0.07um2 cell is single fin for each transistor. Intel's 0.0706um2 cell is 3 fins for pull down. SRAM area is easy to calculate:

For the densest cell, each PD, PG, and PU has a single fin. That's total of 4 active fins. Assuming you print fins at constant pitch and remove every other fin for isolation, densest SRAM needs 8 fins. So area is 8 FP x 2 CPP. This gives 0.069um2 for TSMC and 0.047um2 for Intel. In reality other ground rules or considerations such as desire to have a close gear ratio to metal pitch, makes the cell a bit bigger. You can of course print the fins directly at the desired spacing as opposed to printing at constant pitch and removing every other fin to get smaller cells, but I am not aware of anyone practicing it.

The next cell would be 2 fins for PD. Roughly 0.086um2 for TSMC (which is actually comparable to their dense cell at 20nm) and 0.0588 um2 for Intel. Next would be if you use 3 fins for PD and that gives 0.104um2 for TSMC and 0.0706um2 for Intel.

So a fair comparison is between Intel's 0.0499um2 cell and TSMC's 0.07um2. Of course Intel did not use their smallest cell in product (same story at 22nm).
 
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