IC designers have been creating with hierarchy for years to better manage large design sizes, however for the test world the concept of hierarchy and emerging standards is a bit newer. TSMC and Synopsys jointly created a webinarthat addresses hierarchical test, so I’ve attended it this week and summarized my findings here.Adam Cron, Synopsys Continue reading “Why Adopt Hierarchical Test for SoC Designs”
The presentations from the 450mm sessions at SEMICON West are up now. After talking to equipment manufacturers and the foundries I’m fairly confident 450mm wafers will be under our Christmas trees in 2016, absolutely. TSMC just increased CAPEX again and you can be sure 450mm is part of it. SEMI has a 450mm Central landing page HERE. The SEMICON West 450mm Transition presentations are HERE. The Global 450mm Consortium is HERE. Everything you ever wanted to know about 450mm wafers just a click away; you’re welcome.
Intel, Samsung, and TSMC have invested heavily in 450mm and will have fabs built and operational in 2015 (my opinion). Given the pricing pressures and increasing capacity demands of the mobile semiconductor market 450mm wafers will be mandatory to maintain healthy margins. Based on the data from SEMICON West and follow-up discussions, this is my quick rundown on why moving from a 12” wafer (300mm) to an 18” wafer (450mm) is the next technical innovation we will see this decade.
First and foremost is timing. 14nm wafers will begin production in 2014 with 10nm slated for 2016. Ramping already production worthy 14nm wafers in a new 450mm fab reduces risk and the semiconductor industry is all about reducing risk. Second is wafer margins. As I mentioned before, there will be a glut of 14nm wafers with no less than six companies (Intel, Samsung, TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, UMC, and SMIC) manufacturing them 24/7. The semiconductor industry has never ever seen this kind of total capacity increase for a given node. Add in that the mobile electronics market (phones and tablets) have reached commodity status, wafer margins will be under even more pressure than ever before. Just like the top criteria for investing in real estate: location, location, location. Wafer purchasing criteria at 20nm and below will be: price, price, price.
According to Intel a 450mm fab will cost twice as much as a 300mm fab with equipment accounting for the majority of the delta. The wafer handling equipment is a good example. The additional size and weight of the 450mm wafers will require complete retooling. If you have never been in a fab let me tell you it is something to see. The wafers zip around on ceiling mounted shuttles like something out of a Star Wars movie. As much as I would like to change our dinner plates at home from 12” to 18” to accommodate my increasing appetite, I certainly don’t want to buy a new dishwasher and cabinets to store them.
The ROI of 450mm wafers however is compelling. A 450mm fab with equal wafer capacity to a 300mm fab can produce 2x the amount of die. If you roughly calculate die cost, a 14nm die from a 450mm wafer will cost 23% less than a 300mm wafer. This number is an average of numbers shared with me by friends that work for: an IDM, a foundry, a large fabless company, and an equipment manufacturer. Sound reasonable?
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There is an interesting article on Seeking Alpha, “A More Profitable Semiconductor Company Than Intel”, and for a change the author does not PRETEND to know semiconductor technology. Refreshing! Personally I think the stock market is a racket where insiders profit at the expense of the masses. But if you are going to gamble you should do as much research as possible so you don’t end up on the wrong end of a pump and dump.
INTC was highly successful in capitalizing on the PC revolution showering investors with outsized returns. INTC, teamed up with Microsoft (MSFT) to form the famed Wintel combo that basically owned the PC market, much to shareholders delight. Alas, this is no longer 1998, and a new wave of competitors has emerged knocking INTC of its once mighty perch. The article below, will detail why Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) is a far better play in the semiconductor space.
I certainly like how this article starts. Intel is in serious trouble and very few financial people seem to really understand it. Unfortunately, comparing Intel and TSMC is like comparing an apple to a grape since TSMC customers (AMD, QCOM, NVDA, etc…) compete with Intel not TSMC. I suggested the author do a similar comparison between Intel and Samsung since Samsung has made it very clear that they will be the #1 semiconductor company in the very near future. Considering what they have done to Apple in the mobile space, my bet is on Samsung.
Without a doubt, TSMC created what is today’s semiconductor foundry business model. While at Texas Instruments, Morris Chang pioneered the then controversial idea of pricing semiconductors ahead on the cost curve, sacrificing early profits to gain market share to achieve manufacturing yields that would result in greater long-term profits. This pricing model is still the foundation of the fabless semiconductor business model and nobody does this better than TSMC.
Today the fabless semiconductor ecosystem is a force of nature. According to IC Insights’ August Update to the 2013 McClean Report, the top 20 is now dominated by foundries, fabless, and fab-lite companies. Intel is down 4% while Qualcomm, MediaTek, and TSMC each scored more than a 20% year-over-year growth. It’s all about mobile devices. The writing is on the wall yet the Intel fan club is still calling for $30 per share. My bet would be that INTC and TSM will both be $20 stocks after FY2013 numbers are announced. But then again, I think the stock market is a racket.
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One of the more interesting pieces of information I overheard at SEMICON West earlier this month was that Intel 14nm was delayed. This rumor came from the semiconductor equipment manufacturers and they would know. What I was told is that the Intel 14nm process has not left the OR development facility to be replicated in the OR and AZ fabs.
Process move-in is an important milestone to product launch of course. 14nm move-in was supposed to happen in Q3 but it did not. I got an update this week and was told it would “probably” not happen until Q1. The speculation is that it is a “qualification delay”. I expected to hear something about it during the Intel Q2 2013 conference call but per the transcript:
“14 nanometer on-track to enter production by the end of the year” EVP and CFO Stacy J. Smith
“We are on track to start production on our 14 nanometer process technology in the back half of this year. CEO Brian M. Krzanich
“As far as our 14 nanometer Core launch in our – just our general product launch, I think what we’ve said so far is, first half of 2014 and we’re not going to – we’re not ready to give any specifics beyond that.” CEO Brian M. Krzanich
Maybe they will address it in the Q3 conference call on October 15[SUP]th[/SUP]. What is Intel 14nm exactly and how does it compare to the other 14nm offerings? Good question.
In planar process technologies the 28nm or 20nm implies the minimum transistor gate length of 28nm or 20nm. Corresponding to that lithographic capability are two other critical dimensions: the “contacted gate pitch” and the “metal pitch” for the lowest, thinnest metal layers. (Higher metal layers will be thicker with less resistance which are more suitable for longer routes but will have a greater width+space design pitch.) Given that, the 22nm and 14nm FinFET process technologies are a bit of a misnomer.
Intel opted for single patterning at 22nm (80nm first metal pitch), while focusing on introducing FinFET’s. At 14nm, they will pursue a ‘full’ node shrink, in the sense that they will be using double patterning and a 64nm first metal pitch.
The foundries took a risk in pushing for a 64nm first metal pitch at 20nm planar, with the requisite double patterning lithography. Both TSMC and GF will be maintaining a 64nm DPT metal pitch with their 16/14nm offerings. To read more about DPT see the Double Patterning Exposed articles from Mentor Graphics. They know DPT, believe it.
So, Intel pursued FinFET’s as a top priority, rather than DPT, keeping 22nm costs and risk down. TSMC and GF went DPT first at 20nm with thinner metals on a 64nm pitch and will add FinFETs as a “half” node one year later. A metal pitch of 64nm will be common between Intel, TSMC, and GF at 16/14nm. Both approaches accomplish the same objective but one may turn out to be more time/cost efficient than the other, time will tell.
It will be interesting to see what happens next year. Will Intel’s Haswell hit full production in 2014? What about Altera 14nmm FPGAs? And the SoC version of the Haswell? Delays are common place on bleeding edge semiconductor technology. Some companies own up to being human, some do not, but silicon does not lie.
The semiconductor industry is so close knit it is very hard to keep a secret. Add in social media and it is near impossible. I personally have 16,272 Connections on LinkedIn, linking me to 18,582,711+ professionals. I don’t know everything semiconductor but I certainly know someone who knows. I will keep working on verifying this rumor so stay tuned to SemiWiki.
Also Read: Intel Really is Delaying 14nm….
TSMC announced their Q2 financial results yesterday. Revenue was $5.2B (at the high end of guidance) with net income of $1.6B. This is up 17.4% on Q1 and up 21.6% year-to-year. Gross margin is up too, at 49% which is up 3.2 points on Q1 and 0.3 points year-to-year. As usual the financial results are not directly that interesting since I don’t much care whether TSMC is a buy next quarter. What is more interesting is trying to read the tea-leaves for the big strategic picture on a multi-year timescale.
Their business breaks down 57% in communication, 16% in computer, 20% in industrial and 7% in consumer. Pretty much all the grown since last quarter is in the communication area, which isn’t really a big surprise, up 22% on the biggest numbers, although other areas are all up in the 10-20% too but from smaller bases.
It is interesting to see the shift taking place between process generations. 29% is 28nm, 21% is 40/45nm, 16% is 65nm and everything else is older. Suprisingly, 15% is in 0.15/0.18um (I’m guessing mostly analog and other specialist stuff since there is almost nothing in 0.13um or 90nm).
ARM also announced their results yesterday, and these are significant for TSMC for one reason. If ARM starts to lose share to Intel in mobile (or Intel starts to lose share to ARM in servers) this will impact TSMC negatively (or positively for the servers). Simon Segars, in his first quarterly presentation since becoming CEO, was very bullish on both areas. Perhaps the most interesting little factoid from the ARM presentation is that royalties are up 24% year-on-year, which is much bigger than the growth in overall semiconductor (2%). And perhaps even more interesting is that a large number of cores that ARM has licensed are not yet shipping (and so not yet producing royalties). For instance, the Cortex-M (which is a microcontroller) has 180 licensees but only 50 are yet shipping. Not all of these ARM-based chips will be manufactured by TSMC., of course, but certainly TSMC will get their unfair share as the biggest foundry. That’s an attractive pipeline. ARM-based servers are now starting to ship, and AMD (admittedly a biased observer) is predicting double-digit market share by 2016/17 which is huge if it turns out to be true. And while AMD themselves do a fair bit with GF, other server licensees work with TSMC. And those are big chips (mostly 64 bit) which will need a lot of wafers.
What is TSMC’s total capacity? Their forecast for the end of the year is for 16.5M 8″ equivalent wafers per year. Fab 14 alone is 2.2M 12″ wafers (5M 8″ equivalents). That’s a lot of silicon, up 11% from last year with 12″ capacity up 17% (new fabs are all 12″ of course). Their capex spending remains on-track for $9.5B to $10B for this year (of which 55% has already been spent in the first half).
When Morris Chang spoke he was bullish too. For overall semiconductor they are cutting their forecast from 4% to 3%. But for fabless they predict 9% growth. And for the foundry industry (not just TSMC) they are raising the forecast to 11% from 10%. And for TSMC bigger than that.
As for 28nm:“Our 28-nanometers is on track to triple in wafer sales this year and our 28-nanometer high-K metal gate is ramping fast, and will exceed the Oxynitride solution starting this quarter. For the Oxynitride solution in which we do have competitors, we believe that we have a substantial lead in yield. For the high-K metal gate solution, we do not have any serious competitors yet. We believe we have a substantial lead in performance. If you recall, ours is a gate-last version and our competitors are mainly in the gate-first version.“
20nm: Risk production has started and volume production starts Q1 2014. Doesn’t see any real competition.
14nm: Volume production starts a year after 20nm in early 2015.
Morris again:“On the 16, if we put it on a foundry to foundry or foundry to IDM basis, we are competitive. If you put it on a grand alliance to IDM basis, we are more than competitive.”
(BTW the transcript for this part keeps saying IBM but that makes no sense and it must really mean IDM, integrated device manufacturer. Or, to be precise, Intel. What Morris is saying is that they will be competitive with Intel at 14nm).
Presentation is here. Transcript of call is here. Transcript of ARM’s call is here.
There still seems to be a lot of confusion here so let me set the record straight. In regards to the Apple Ax SoC, the Apple iPhone 5s will have Samsung 28nm Silicon. Samsung 28nm is still ramping but Samsung can make enough wafers and eat the yield issues no problem. The Apple iPhone 6 in 2014 will have TSMC 20nm as I reported previously. TSMC 20nm is ahead of schedule so no problem there. Contrary to what was reported (TSMC reaches deal with Apple to supply 20nm, 16nm and 10nm chips, sources claim), the iPhone 6s in 2015 will have Samsung 14nm Silicon. Samsung is a bit ahead of the pack on FinFETs and from what I was told they made a wafer price offer that Apple could not refuse. As I mentioned before, there will be a glut of 16/14nm wafers so pricing will be VERY attractive for the fabless semiconductor industry. Best of luck to all who oppose us fabless people, you will need it.
This is all fact. Moving forward is opinion but I have a much better record on being right than my counterparts in regards to the fabless semiconductor ecosystem so keep on reading:
It is being reported that Apple will invest in a fab: Exclusive: Apple has a fab, will make their own chips. This is a complete FABrication. The SemiAccurate website has not even been semi accurate in regards to the foundry business. They have also changed business models so now you have to pay $1,000 to be a member of a rumor website? Good luck with that. I met the site’s owner Charlie Demerjian at CES in Las Vegas two years ago. Lets just say that he may talk tough behind a keyboard but in person, not so much. Charlie was wrong about Apple manufacturing at Intel, he was wrong about TSMC 40nm and TSMC 28nm, and he is wrong here. No way is Apple going to buy into a fab, especially UMC. UMC is a second source foundry which means they are a year or two behind TSMC. The whole point to the fabless ecosystem is competition, the ability to choose wafer providers based on different business variables. No way can Apple/UMC compete with Intel, TSMC, and Samsung on technology and wafer costs. 450mm wafers are coming and Apple will try and compete with a 300mm fab investment?
An article from C/NET has Apple tying up with GLOBALFOUDNRIES:
Apple talking to Globalfoundries about U.S.-based chipmaking, says report. If Apple owned capacity at a fab, it would give the company the kind of control over both design and chip manufacturing that Intel has.
This is not true. Apple started with Samsung as an ASIC customer and has worked for 5+ years to get out from under Samsung and be able to independently participate in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. Apple does all of their own design work now. Apple even develops foundation semiconductor IP. Apple has successfully moved production from Samsung 28nm to TSMC 20nm. Samsung 28nm is gate-first HKMG technology and TSMC 20nm is gate-last HKMG with double patterning so that change was no small feat. Do a search on LinkedIn for Apple employees under the semiconductor category. You will see hundreds of experienced semiconductor professionals at Apple. You will also see a group of former ATI employees who have recently joined Apple for custom GPU development. Yes, Apple is designing their own GPU.
Bottom line: No way will Apple tie up to one foundry and give up the competitive advantages of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. Not going to happen. There is a reason why we are all fabless now and I do not see Intel or anyone else turning back time to the Jurassic semiconductor period where “real men have fabs” weighing down their balance sheets, just my opinion of course.
During my trip to Taiwan I hopped on over to Hong Kong for a speaking engagement. One of the things I do as an “Internationally Recognized Industry Expert” is help the financial world understand the semiconductor landscape as it pertains to SoCs and mobile devices. Usually I do this over the phone or in writing but I prefer to do it in person whenever possible. Nothing compares to the human connection with eye contact and a firm handshake. The Q&A part is my favorite since I get to ask questions too.
I generally start with a brief history of the fabless semiconductor industry then talk about specific technologies in use today, the major players in the market, and where I see them going forward. The examples I use are from my work with the top fabless semiconductor companies, the foundries, and the design enablement ecosystem (EDA and IP). That takes about 45 minutes I then open it up for questions. The big question is what will happen to the semiconductor landscape in the coming years? For me, the “coming years” means the coming semiconductor process nodes, 20nm, 16nm, and 10nm.
Mobile devices will continue to drive the semiconductor industry into the foreseeable future, no surprise there. 28nm was a bit of a shocker when TSMC was the only semiconductor manufacturer to yield which resulted in an unheard of > 90% market share. This caused shortages and the highest wafer margins we will probably ever see. Critics blame TSMC for the 28nm shortage but let’s face facts, the other foundries did not yield as forecasted and TSMC did not build capacity for > 90% market share.
20nm will be a half node since 16/14nm (20nm with FinFET transistors) is only one year behind. FinFETs offer significant power savings so the mobile people will be FinFETing as fast as they can. The high performance companies will probably skip 16nm to focus on 10nm which will arrive two years later. If you are betting against these dates be sure and hedge those bets because you will lose. The fabless semiconductor ecosystem is a force of nature, there is no stopping it now.
As it stands today there will be (6) foundries manufacturing FinFETS: Intel, Samsung, TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, UMC, and SMIC. If they all yield, which is a big IF, there will be a serious glut of FinFET wafers on the market. Even if only Intel, Samsung, and TSMC yield, which is NOT a big if, there will be a wafer glut. A softening global economy will put even more pressure on wafer pricing.
So what happens next? A price war of course, a price war of epic proportions, a game changing price war that will benefit the mobile market and the fabless semiconductor ecosystem but will change the foundry landscape for sure. Who will win the price war? Samsung of course. Samsung is no stranger to wafer dumping, which is how they dominated the DRAM market. Samsung is dominating the mobile market in the same manner, by flooding it with product. Samsung’s goal is to be the #1 semiconductor company and I honestly believe they will be.
Let’s not forget Intel was once a dominant player in the memory market. Unfortunately increased manufacturing competition from Asia dramatically reduced margins. As the story goes, Intel’s Andy Grove and Gordon Moore are talking about a board meeting the next day. “What do you think would happen if they fire us?” Grove said. “They’ll hire someone who’ll get us out of memories” Moore replied. “So why don’t we walk out of that door, come back in and do that ourselves.” And they did.
I cannot think of a more exciting time in the history of semiconductors. TSMC creating the fabless semiconductor ecosystem 25 years ago was exciting but FinFETs and the plethora of low cost mobile devices that are coming ranks right up there!
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As a semiconductor professional and an Apple customer I’m very interested to see what is inside the iPhone5s. Rumors are spreading, photos are leaking, creating a nice build up to the next release of the mobile device that changed the world.
Honestly, last year I was a bit disappointed with the iPhone5. Inside is the A6 SoC which uses the Samsung 32nm process technology, even though Samsung announced a fully qualified 28nm process in June of 2011 (Can Samsung Deliver?). As a result, rumors swirled that Apple would switch to TSMC 28nm, rumors which I found to be false (TSMC Apple Rumors Debunked). So no, sad to say the iPhone5s will not have a TSMC 28nm SoC. My guess is that it will be Samsung 28nm which is said to be in production now.
Unless the iPhone5s has some cool new features like finger print scan and NFC for quick coffee house purchases, I will probably wait for the TSMC 20nm powered iPhone6 next year.
The other rumor that came out of Taiwan this week from DigiTimes is that Apple signed an agreement with TSMC for 20nm, 16nm, and 10nm. I’m in Taiwan now and can tell you that NOBODY here takes DigiTimes seriously. Same thing goes for Seeking Alpha, DeepChip, SemiAccurate, and other click hungry rumor websites. TSMC has beefed up security in the recent months so I seriously doubt that type of information leaked out here. Apple is also VERY secretive so I think it is just one of those tabloid journalism attempts to catch your eye.
From my discussions at the 50th Design Automation Conference, the top fabless companies are still looking closely at the different FinFET processes, waiting for the final PDKs (Process Design Kits) to be delivered later this year. Given the capacity issues at 28nm (since only TSMC yielded), I fully expect the fabless industry to keep second and even third source FinFET options open. As for who wins the node with the most first source contracts? It will be a tight race between TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and Samsung with wafer price being the critical factor. My bet of course is on TSMC since they have the required capacity for mobile and trust is always part of the wafer purchase equation.
From what I know today, all three foundries will be ready for FinFET tape-outs in Q4 of this year. Here is my personal score card for the top fabless semiconductor companies on where they will manufacture FinFET Devices next year:
[LIST=1]
This of course is subject to change when the 1.0 production version of the PDKs (Process Design Kits) are released. TSMC could sweep the entire node like they did at 28nm and 20nm. But for someone to say that any of these companies has signed a foundry deal for 10nm is just silly. 10nm negotiations have just started and will absolutely hinge on who delivers 16nm as promised and at what price. All of this is just my opinion of course but let common sense prevail!
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The power of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem never ceases to amaze me. On one hand you have the Intel backed press crowing about Intel stealing Altera from TSMC. On the other hand you have Xilinx and TSMC crowing about a new ‘one-team’ approach. If you are interested in the real story you’ve come to the right place.
“Altera’s FPGAs using Intel 14 nm technology will enable customers to design with the most advanced, highest-performing FPGAs in the industry,” said John Daane, president, CEO and chairman of Altera. “In addition, Altera gains a tremendous competitive advantage at the high end in that we are the only major FPGA company with access to this technology.”
“I am extremely confident that our ‘FinFast’ collaboration with TSMC on 16-nanometer will bring the same leadership results that we enjoyed at previous advanced technologies,” said Moshe Gavrielov, President and CEO of Xilinx. “We are committed to TSMC as the clear foundry leader in every dimension, from process technology to design enablement, service, support, quality, and delivery.”
The one disadvantage of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and crowd sourcing in general is that you are working with companies that also work with your competitors. That is certainly the case with TSMC since just about every fabless semiconductor company manufactures at TSMC and TSMC is bound by honor (The Trusted Technology and Capacity Provider) to provide a level playing field for all customers. The only thing worse would be if the company that manufactures your product competes directly with you, just ask Apple!
“We look forward to collaborating with Altera on manufacturing leading-edge FPGAs, leveraging Intel’s leadership in process technology,” said Brian Krzanich, chief operating officer, Intel. “Next-generation products from Altera require the highest performance and most power-efficient technology available, and Intel is well positioned to provide the most advanced offerings.”
“We are committed to working with Xilinx to bring the industry’s highest performance and highest integration programmable devices quickly to market,” said Morris Chang, TSMC Chairman and CEO. “Together we will deliver world-class products on TSMC’s 20SoC technology in 2013 and on 16FinFET technology in 2014.”
This was certainly the case for Altera and Xilinx at TSMC. The flow of information and collaboration was definitely guarded knowing full well that any process improvement would benefit both companies. Altera moving to Intel changed that of course, a change for the better in regards to the greater good of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. Putting the number one foundry (TSMC) in close collaboration with the number one provider of programmable technologies and devices (Xilinx) could be a serious game changer, absolutely. Look for a Xilinx flavored version of the 16nm process for higher performance applications like FPGAs, CPUs, and GPUs. Just my opinion of course.
Let’s look at the FUD side of this:
I’m not questioning Altera’s decision to partner with Intel. It was definitely the right thing to do given Xilinx seriously challenged them at 28nm and will again at 20nm. Competition fuels our industry and Intel/Altera are a competitive threat so it is for the greater good.
I do however question the Intel biased spin on the situation and the constant bashing of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. My opinion, Intel will rue the day they openly attacked QCOM, ARM, TSMC, and the rest of the fabless crowd, believe it. Hey Mr. Intel, this is not the microprocessor world you have controlled since the beginning of time. You are not in Kansas anymore Dorothy.
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This completely misleading title is from a Seeking Alpha (SA) article, a stock investment version of the National Enquirer. As I mentioned inA Call to ARMs, fame and fortune seeking SA Authors make a penny per click so sensationalism sells. The article is not worth your time so I will save you the click and skip to the misguided conclusion:
TSMC is a great company that is a leader in the foundry space, but they are trying too hard to appease investors/customers with some of these claims regarding FinFETs. On the January call (before Intel took Altera and likely Cisco (CSCO) from TSMC), the claim was “minimal volumes of 16nm in 2015”. Now, TSMC is trying to pull a FinFAST one on investors and customers by claiming that 16nm will be in production during 2014, totally bypassing the yet-to-ramp 20nm node.I’m not buying these claims, and neither should you.
First, you should know that Cisco is an IBM ASIC customer not a TSMC customer. ASIC customers do the front half of the design while letting the ASIC vendor (IBM) complete the chip. TSMC does not do ASICs, to be a TSMC customer Cisco will have to go through a services provider such as Global Unichip or LSI Logic. IBM is getting out of the ASIC business so Cisco switching to Intel is a smart move. Today Intel does not have the ecosystem required to allow fabless semiconductor companies to use their fabs without training wheels so the ASIC model works for Intel. Seeking Alpha is promoting F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) here.
Second, here is a FinFET update: As a SemiWiki reader you should know that I have spent a lot of time on FinFETs since hearing about them at ISSCC in 2011:
“New transistor designs are part of the answer,” said Dr. Jack Sun. “Options include a design called FinFET, which uses multiple gates on each transistor. Researchers have made great progress with FinFET, and TSMC hopes it can be used for the next generation of CMOS — the industry’s standard silicon manufacturing process.”
Immediately following, I asked friends and co-workers why TSMC did not already have FinFETs on the road map. The answer from the top fabless companies was that changing transistor architecture is a huge risk and the reward of FinFETs was not clear to them at that time. This was back before 28nm when the top mobile designers chose 28nm polyscion over HKMG for the same reason, lower risk. Leading edge semiconductor designers are by nature risk adverse.
Let us not forget where FinFETs came from: Dr Chenming Hu, the father of FinFETs, and this year’sKaufman Award winner. Chenming’s ground breaking work on FinFETs and the BSIM modeling standard were the highlights of his technical achievements. Chenming is a former TSMC CTO and today is a TSMC Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley. TSMC knows FinFETs, believe it.
Disclaimer: The following FinFET information comes from sessions and private discussions at the 50[SUP]th[/SUP] Design Automation Conference this month, not from Googling around and making foolish assumptions to support my stock positions.
Today the top fabless semiconductor companies have taped-out 20nm designs which will go into production in 2014. 20nm is now ramping, silicon IS correlating (working), I see no barriers to full production in 2014. TSMC estimated that 20nm revenue would start in Q2 2014 but my bet is they are being conservative by one quarter to appease Wall Street. Either way your iPhone6 will have TSMC 20nm Silicon next year, believe it.
FinFETs are also ahead of schedule. Remember, the first version of FinFETs will use the 20nm process so delivering them in one year versus the standard two year new process technology launch is not unexpected or unrealistic to the experienced semiconductor professional. Consider 16nm to be a half node in regards to development time and delivery.
Today the 16/14nm version .5 PDKs (process design kits) are in use by the leading fabless semiconductor companies. The 1.0 PDKs will be released in October with tape-outs shortly thereafter. If the PDK change between version .5 and version 1.0 is minimal, tape-outs will happen in Q4 of 2013 with production/revenue STARTING one year later (just in time for the iPhone7). If the 1.0 PDK has significant changes tape-outs may be delayed to Q1 2014. Keep reading SemiWiki and you will be one of the first to know.
The other interesting FinFET news is that the foundries will most likely offer two versions of the 16/14nm process: a low power version and a version with more performance. From what I understand the transistor thresholds and pitches will be adjusted for performance. Not a big change but hopefully it will get an extra 10% or more speed-up for those who need it.
So again Seeking Alpha is publishing FinFALSE information to satisfy personal agendas of the Authors. Just my opinion of course.
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