TSMC 28HPC Process in Volume Production

Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C. – September 12, 2014 – TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced its 28-nanometer High Performance Compact (28HPC) process is in volume production, making it the most power- and cost-efficient solution among all 28-nanometer technologies in the foundry segment. The achievement of this milestone demonstrates TSMC’s commitment to providing industry-leading technology for customers looking to tap power and performance benefits in cost-effective SoC designs.

28HPC is the newest process offering of TSMC’s comprehensive 28nm family that already includes 28LP (low power with SiON), 28HP (high performance with HKMG), 28HPL (low power with HKMG), and 28HPM (high performance for mobile computing). As a compact version of 28HPM, TSMC’s 28HPC is fully optimized for customers’ architectures to realize competitive die size and product performance for the new generation of cost-effective mobile and consumer devices, and delivers a highly competitive performance/cost advantage.

28HPC can deliver the best 64-bit CPU and LTE (long term evolution) modem performance under a fixed total design power budget for smartphones, tablets and other consumer products. Compared with TSMC’s 28LP, 28HPC provides 10% smaller die size and 30% lower power at all levels of speed, or over 20% speed improvement at the same power, through tighter process control, more efficient design solutions, and new process features. A comprehensive 28HPC IP ecosystem is also established and seamlessly applicable to 28HPM designs, accelerating time-to-market for customers.

"The arrival of our 28HPC process is in tune with market demand for cost-effective SoC applications," said TSMC President and Co-CEO, Dr. Mark Liu. "With a comprehensive IP ecosystem, our customers can quickly achieve new levels of product integration and innovation."

These significant benefits from TSMC’s 28HPC process have enabled many customer engagements. There have been 10 customers with 28HPC products taped out and several have started volume production. Another 70 new product tape-outs are in the pipeline scheduled for the end of 2014.

"TSMC’s 28HPC technology provides an extended dynamic range that enables the application specific design flexibility and effectiveness to optimize performance, power and area," said Mike Zhang, CEO at Allwinner. "We take full advantage of the 28HPC process features in the A83, our new octa-core application processor, which demonstrates outstanding overall performance with an optimized balance of speed and power for next-generation tablets and many other applications."

"Our partnership with TSMC’s 28HPC technology has further extended our leadership in 4K Ultra High Definition OTT STB, Smart TV, and tablet SoC solutions," said John Zhong, CEO of Amlogic. "Amlogic’s S812 SoC is the first 4K HEVC solution to address market needs of the fast growing China market. It offers quad-core Cortex-A9 CPUs, Octa-core Mali-T450 GPUs, and HD audio capabilities such as Dolby AC3, DTS, SRS and DivX HD. It has been adopted by leading OTT OEMs."

"As a result of our continuing collaboration with TSMC, we’re able to deliver proven and innovative IP on their new process nodes very quickly," said Martin Lund, senior vice president of the IP Group at Cadence. "By delivering our interface, memory, analog and systems/peripheral IP to this 28HPC process, our customers in the smartphone, tablet and other high-volume consumer markets can take advantage of the 10 percent smaller die size and 30 percent power reduction benefits of this new process."

"As a leading supplier of DTV SoC, MStar has worked with TSMC for the past several process generations including 28LP and 40LP. Now we can leverage 28HPC for the Global High-End UHD TV platform which enables our ultra-powerful 4K UHD TV solution for the market," said WK Pingo, a vice president at MStar Semiconductor.

"As a smartphone SoC for a broad product spectrum, the products we have developed based on TSMC’s 28HPC process feature Quad or Octa-CPU cores at speeds ranging from 1.4GHz to 2GHz, and have been adopted by leading smartphone suppliers," said Dr. Leo Lee, CEO of Spreadtrum. "Spreadtrum leverages TSMC 28HPC technology to develop competitive three or five mode baseband modems, as well as WiFi/BT/FM/GPS connectivity, 1080P or 4K HD video and powerful ISP. These newest turnkey solutions will enable handset makers to develop cost-effective and differentiated products quickly and tailored for the needs of different markets."

"As a recipient of TSMC’s ’Interface IP Partner of Year’ award for four consecutive years, Synopsys demonstrates how we closely collaborate with TSMC to bring high-quality IP on advanced processes to market quickly," said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP and prototyping at Synopsys. "With more than 1,400 Design Ware® IP products listed in the TSMC IP catalog, including the broad portfolio of production-ready IP for the 28HPC process, Synopsys provides designers with IP that helps them achieve the performance, power and area goals for their SoCs, while speeding time to volume production."

About TSMC
TSMC is the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry’s leading process technology and the foundry segment’s largest portfolio of process-proven libraries, IPs, design tools and reference flows. The Company’s owned capacity in 2014 is expected to be about 8 million (12-inch equivalent) wafers, including capacity from three advanced 12-inch GIGAFAB™ facilities, four eight-inch fabs, one six-inch fab, as well as TSMC’s wholly owned subsidiaries, WaferTech and TSMC China. TSMC is the first foundry to provide 28nm and 20nm production capabilities. TSMC’s corporate headquarters are in Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please visit http://www.tsmc.com.