TSMC delays the mass production of 16nm FinFET chips by up to 6 months

[BiG StroOnZ]

TSMC was meant to be ramping up its 16nm FinFET production any time before the end of the month, but the manufacturing company has provided an update for this, saying it is happy with the yield, but is pushing back mass production of 16nm to early 2015.

 

The company said this would happen in early 2015, but finished by saying it could even fall into Q3 2015. Once TSMC has reached mass production of its 16nm FinFET process, it will provide added performance and power savings when compared to current technologies. TSMC has said that it is happy with the first yields of 16nm FinFET, but will not start mass producing it until around the second half of next year. The company said: "On the yield learning side, the progress [of 16nm] is much better than our original plan."

 

TSMC continued "This is because the 16nm uses similar [bEOL] process to 20SOC, except for the transistor. Because of the excellent progress in yield learning and readiness in manufacturing maturity and also to meet customers' demand, we plan to pull in 16-nanometer volume production through the end of Q2 next year or early Q3 year 2015." The full reason behind the delay isn't known right now, but the demand of 20nm is growing quick with the launch of the new iPhone, with Apple tapping TSMC for the production of its A8 and A8X chips.

 

Apple has increased its orders to TSMC, which requires higher production capacities. This leads to TSMC needed to ensure it can sustain producing 16nm tech for other companies, as well as Apple, before it can dive into mass production. We should hopefully hear more about this early next year.

 

 

Source: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/40660/tsmc-delays-the-mass-production-of-16nm-finfet-chips-by-up-to-6-months/index.html

 

Wonder how this will interfere with current progress. 

[Tonylu1595]

 

Wonder how this will interfere with current progress. 

 

 

I dunno maybe it will delay some products.

[BiG StroOnZ]

 

 

 

I dunno maybe it will delay some products.

 

 

NVDIA was supposed to get 16nm FinFET chips from TSMC, I know they were supposed to use them in their next Tegra chip, but I wonder if Pascal was supposed to be on 16nm too

[Eroda]

pascal is supposed to be 16nm  but thats 2016 they are rumored to have skipped 20nm in favor of 16nm due to 20nm being so far behind meaning if AMD does indeed have 20nm chips and HBM etc nvidia will be struggling for a little bit to come up with a solution to beat them until 16nm

[JayD]

What? TSMC failing to deliver on its originally promised time frame for new nodes? Nah, couldn't be!

[Toddwjp]

doesnt surprise me, integrated circuits are getting towards the borders of physics now.

[Spongy141]

Fine by me as long as we get 20nm from AMD. 

[cesrai]

What? TSMC failing to deliver on its originally promised time frame for new nodes? Nah, couldn't be!

So true.

[Plasma]

this is a old article but it explains the issue approaching 10nm

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/97469-is-14nm-the-end-of-the-road-for-silicon-lithography

[Shalashaska]

It's OK, not like any other company in the world is about to compete with them to mass produce such items in the next 12 months it is super high tech.

[bcredeur97]

whoever finds out how to go past 10nm is gonna make a LOT of money just sayin'

[mr moose]

Man, it seems like just yesterday we were discussing the move from 120nm to 90nm.  "wow', we thought, "they've broken the 100nm barrier".