In a move to beat Intel and Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, known as the TSMC, now plans to have its 7nm production ready for mass production in H1 2018.

According to a report from Digitimes, TSMC has pushed its 7nm plans forward and plans to begin trial production in first half of 2017 with mass production ramping up in the first half 2018.

During an investor meeting, TSMC co-CEO Mark Liu noted that the company wants to beat Intel and Samsung and is focused on getting the 7nm manufacturing process ready for H1 2018.

According to Liu, the technology behind 7nm is based on 95 percent of the same equipment as the 10nm manufacturing process but should provide 60 percent in logic density gain and up to 30 to 40 percent reduction in power consumption, compared to the 10nm manufacturing process.

TSMC also notes that it has 20 customers on board for the 7nm chips with 15 customer tap-outs in 2017. Unfortunately, TSMC did not spill the beans regarding those names but we suspect that all major players, except for Intel and Samsung are on-board.

While the 10nm chips will be focused on mobile market, 7nm will be split between mobile and high-performance computing (HPC) market. TSMC already announced that it is working with ARM on bringing 7nm FinFET SoC designs for HPC market and it appears that this move is finally paying off.



Source: Digitimes.com.