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Key Takeaways from the TSMC Technology Symposium Part 2SemiWiki - ChipGuyMar. 23, 2016 |
In Part 1, we reviewed four of the highlights of the recent TSMC Technology Symposium in San Jose. This article details the “Final Four” key takeaways from the TSMC presentations, and includes a few comments about the advanced technology research that TSMC is conducting.
(4) The 7nm node will immediately bifurcate into two technology offerings.
As mentioned in Part 1 of the symposium review, TSMC is expanding their focus to address a wider set of application markets. N7FF will be introduced with mobile and high-performance computing offerings from the start, with a corresponding design enablement “platform” releases for different markets.
Historically, the 55nm, 40nm, 28nm, and 16nm nodes have indeed been defined with multiple variants, and have continued to evolve beyond the initial offering -- e.g., the 55ULP, 40ULP, 28HPC+, and 16FFC technology options mentioned in Part 1. (TSMC indicated that the 10nm node will also subsequently receive an ultra-low power ULP release.)
