14 DAY TRIAL // Moore's Law says that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit, without cost drawbacks, doubles about every two years.
That means that manufacturing process technologies have to be planned well in advance, and this is precisely what United Microelectronics Corp. is doing.
Much like Intel promised that 14nm “Broadwell” SoCs would be available in 2014-2015, UMC has begun preparations for 14nm manufacture.
Long story short, UMC has started building two new phases for the 300mm Fab 12A, phase 5 and 6 (P5 and P6) to be more exact, at its complex in Tainan, Taiwan.
Before it actually starts making 14nm wafers though, it will use the factory for 28nm and 20nm chips.
Production will start in the second half of the year and the total capacity should end up at around 50 thousand 300mm wafers per month. Combined with the chips Fab 12A currently makes, that will lead to 130 thousand wafers a month.
"This past decade, UMC's 300mm fabs in Taiwan and Singapore helped UMC strengthen our position as a first-tier foundry provider. Our internal R&D efforts continue to prove successful with the development of progressive advanced technologies," said Shih-Wei Sun, chief executive officer of UMC.
"28nm Poly SiON is now ramping mobile communication and computing products, 28nm gate-last HKMG is set to start pilot production of flagship products in the second half of this year, and 20nm HKMG and 14nm FinFET are advancing smoothly."
Besides advancing its nodes, UMC will continue to collaborate with customers on HV, embedded non-volatile memory, 3D IC TSV, 2.5D interposer, BSI CMOS image sensor and other specialty technologies.
Once P5 and P6 are online, UMC will go ahead and build Phases 7 and 8, adding another 50 thousand wafers per month to Fab 12A's capacity, leading to 180 thousand.