Published in PC Hardware

TSMC 20nm Fab 14 coming on line soon

by on02 April 2013

Two months ahead of schedule

TSMC apparently thinks we’ve been stuck at 28nm for way too long and it seems on track to open its first 20nm foundry later this month.

Fab 14 is supposed to churn out 20nm SoCs and according to Taiwanese media it will open on April 20, two months ahead of schedule. If nothing goes wrong, it will begin volume production by the end of Q2, with shipments ramping up in the second half of the year, reports Focus Taiwan

Observers believe TSMC’s 20nm process could help it land some orders from Apple. It has been rumoured for months that Apple wouldn’t mind building its A7 chips at TSMC.

All this might be very bad news for Samsung. The Korean giant is apparently struggling to produce enough 28nm Exynos 5 chips for its flagship Galaxy S4, yet TSMC is already gunning for 20nm. In theory, Qualcomm, Nvidia and other ARM players could have 20nm SoC designs as early as next year, while Samsung is still ironing out its 28nm process.

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