TSMC Sees "Design Explosion" with 28nm Chips // 28奈米為台積電打開大門

TSMC Sees "Design Explosion" with 28nm Chips.

TSMC: 28nm Process Technology Brings New Design Wins

[05/15/2011 02:59 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company believes that 28nm process technology opens a number of new doors for the company. The world's largest contract manufacturer of chips claims that it has almost ninety 28nm design wins and believes the new fabrication process will have high popularity among chip designers for ultra-portable devices.

"The smartphone and tablet is the new killer application. We are seeing a design explosion at 28nm. We have 89 tape-outs in the pipeline," said Maria Marced, president of TSMC Europe, in an interview with EETimes web-site.

According to the official of TSMC, the company already has 90% of the 28nm foundry market. The market share number cannot be verified since, for example, Samsung Electronics claims that it has 35 tape-outs with its 32nm and 28nm process technologies, which are similar.

Unlike TSMC, Samsung uses high-K metal gate for its 32nm chips, whereas the Taiwan-based foundry bluntly scrapped 32nm fabrication process since it was essentially a shrink from 40nm and it was not economically feasible. TSMC is not currently shipping non-HKMG-based 28nm parts.

It is rather noteworthy that there are at least 134 tape-outs for 28nm process technology at TSMC and Samsung, not counting GlobalFoundries. The amount of designers requiring to produce chips at the 40nm node is lower, which means that the 28nm fabrication process is significantly more economically feasible.

28奈米為台積電打開大門　客戶需求呈爆炸性成長
資料來源: 電子時報 (2011/05/16)

科技資訊網站X-bit labs引述台積電歐洲區總裁Maria Marced的話表示，該公司相信28奈米製程科技已為台積電開啟一扇大門，據悉，晶圓代工龍頭台積電已取得將近90項28奈米製程設計採納(design wins)，並相信這項全新製程科技可望在可攜式電子產品業者中廣受歡迎。

Maria Marced表示，智慧型手機和平板電腦可說是全新的殺手級應用，台積電觀察到28奈米製程設計需求呈現爆炸性成長，該公司已經達到89項送交製造(tape-outs)。台積電表示，該公司已拿下28奈米製程將近9成的晶圓代工市場。