By: dmcq (dmcq.delete@this.fano.co.uk), August 26, 2014 12:17 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on August 25, 2014 10:24 pm wrote:
> juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 25, 2014 12:29 pm wrote:
> > And TSMC has accelerated roadmap and will start 16nm volume production in 1Q15:
> >
> > Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will advance volume production on its 16nm
> > process to the first quarter of 2015 with monthly output of 50,000 wafers in order to meet demand
> > for Apple's A9 processors, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) has reported.
> >
> > TSMC originally planned to kicked off 16nm volume production in second-quarter 2015.
> > TSMC faces strong competition from Samsung Electronics' foundry business.
> >
> > http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20140825PB201.html
> >
> > Broadwell-EP @14nm vs ARM server-class @16nm will be an interesting figth to watch.
>
>
> If true, and if TSMC delivers, what difference does it make in the end? TSMC will be devoting all of that leading
> edge capacity to Apple, so they will end up delivering 16nm even later to the rest of their customers.
>
> In addition, Apple has specific needs and to them performance is less important than power, yield and
> time to market. All the effort spent getting things working for Apple will probably make TSMC even
> later with a high performance 16nm process (i.e. one desirable for GPUs, ARM server CPUs, etc.)
TSMC are pretty tight with their money and don't set up new lines just on spec, people need to negotiate and agree to terms in advance. They keep warning people not to expect to have available capacity on a new process if they just turn up with a design to fab. However they have said about having more designs in the pipeline for 16nm than 20nm and ramping more quickly. I'd guess Apple must have come to the conclusion they didn't want to depend wholly on Samsung for A9 and they seem willing to go for a new process earlier in it lifetime, and so have signed the dotted line for at least some stuff from TSMC. Overall I would expect this to mean TSMC's 16nm processes are available just a little bit earlier for others as it means TSMC can safely target having more capacity sooner.
> juanrga (nospam.delete@this.juanrga.com) on August 25, 2014 12:29 pm wrote:
> > And TSMC has accelerated roadmap and will start 16nm volume production in 1Q15:
> >
> > Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will advance volume production on its 16nm
> > process to the first quarter of 2015 with monthly output of 50,000 wafers in order to meet demand
> > for Apple's A9 processors, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) has reported.
> >
> > TSMC originally planned to kicked off 16nm volume production in second-quarter 2015.
> > TSMC faces strong competition from Samsung Electronics' foundry business.
> >
> > http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20140825PB201.html
> >
> > Broadwell-EP @14nm vs ARM server-class @16nm will be an interesting figth to watch.
>
>
> If true, and if TSMC delivers, what difference does it make in the end? TSMC will be devoting all of that leading
> edge capacity to Apple, so they will end up delivering 16nm even later to the rest of their customers.
>
> In addition, Apple has specific needs and to them performance is less important than power, yield and
> time to market. All the effort spent getting things working for Apple will probably make TSMC even
> later with a high performance 16nm process (i.e. one desirable for GPUs, ARM server CPUs, etc.)
TSMC are pretty tight with their money and don't set up new lines just on spec, people need to negotiate and agree to terms in advance. They keep warning people not to expect to have available capacity on a new process if they just turn up with a design to fab. However they have said about having more designs in the pipeline for 16nm than 20nm and ramping more quickly. I'd guess Apple must have come to the conclusion they didn't want to depend wholly on Samsung for A9 and they seem willing to go for a new process earlier in it lifetime, and so have signed the dotted line for at least some stuff from TSMC. Overall I would expect this to mean TSMC's 16nm processes are available just a little bit earlier for others as it means TSMC can safely target having more capacity sooner.
