Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, the world’s largest contract foundry, announced this week that it will be transitioning to 20nm fabrication, not 22nm as planned, by 2013.
The foundry’s 20nm process will be based on several key innovations: planar processing, high-k metal gate (HKMG) transistors, refined strained silicon processes and ultra-low-k copper interconnects.
During an address to nearly 1500 TSMC customers and partners, TSMC SVP of R&D Dr. Shang-yi Chiang said the move to 20nm will create superior chip density and performance, as well as a better cost to performance ratio than 22nm. Chiang also announced that risk production would begin in 2012, with production hitting volume in the following year.
“We have reached a point in advanced technology development where we need to be actively concerned about the ROI of advanced technology. We also need to broaden our thinking beyond the process technology barriers that are inherent in every new node. Collaborative and co-optimized innovation is required to overcome the technological and economic challenges,” Dr. Chiang said.
The announcement that TSMC intends to skip 22nm processing comes just days after growing rival Globalfoundries confirmed that it would be skipping 32nm production for 28nm, a move TSMC also made recently. The string of process-related announcements are evidence that the next price war may come in the foundry, and that battle war is already heating up.
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