14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung is one of the corporations with the largest semiconductor fabrication plants on the market. It may not make many GPUs, but it does a lot of work with ARM processors and memory chips.
It's interesting to watch foundries sometimes, because no one is on the same level as everyone else.
TSMC is barely moving to 16nm, after skipping 20nm entirely. Globalfoundries might still make 20nm chips if AMD asks it to. Meanwhile, Toshiba is producing NAND Flash chips based on the 19nm technology.
All the while, Intel is preparing for its own advancement from 22nm to 16nm.
This landscape gives a measure of amusement value to the thought that Samsung is ahead of them all in this sector of the industry.
According to ZDNet, Samsung is already producing 14nm FinFET chips, although we don't know who the client is. Apple and Qualcomm are possible buyers, though it could be both (or neither).
Since 14nm FinFET Samsung chips occupy 15% less space than 20nm chips and are 20% more efficient according to the company, whoever the customer is stands to gain a lot by pioneering the node. Both in terms of product benefits and reputation.
Meanwhile, Samsung is sticking to the 20nm Snapdragon 810 and Exynos 7410 system-on-chip devices. Unless it decides to create some smartwatches based on the new 14nm technology.
