TSMC Fulfills 28nm Orders, Starts Shipments of First Commercial Chips

End-users will probably have heard about how TSMC is moving fast to better manufacturing processes, and it appears that the first shipments of its 28nm process have finally begun, or so it is reported.

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is, technically, already well ahead of all companies that deal in processors or logic products, at least as far as the 28nm node goes.

Still, right now, the company only makes FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) with its most basic 28nm process, otherwise known as 28LP. This process technology utilizes poly gate and silicon nitrate for gates.

Nevertheless, while still benefiting from a head start of sorts, the foundry was still about a quarter (3 months) late, according to its own schedule.

That said, it would seem that the first batch of shipments has finally been carried out, as rumored on the web.

The first order of business will be to ship about five thousand 28nm FPGA wafers to Altera and Xilinx, or so says Eric Chen, an analyst with Daiwa Securities, according to a Digitmes report.

Originally, the first shipment should have been carried out during the third quarter of 2010, but later reports said that Altera only got its first batch during the fourth quarter.

As it stands, it is impossible to make sure if even the second part of that supposition is true, as the Taiwanese company didn't comment in any way.

Either way, the plan is for 28LP to be followed by 28HP and 28HPL, respectively. These technologies should be ready and selling before the end of the ongoing year (2011).

Their design will involve high-K metal gate (HKMG) and the chips will be employed by the likes of Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Texas instruments and Qualcomm.

All in all, 2%-3% of all revenues during the fourth quarter of 2011 should be accounted for by the 28nm nodes.