14 DAY TRIAL // After hitting more than a few speed bumps along the way with its 40nm manufacturing process, TSMC wants to reassure all of us that everything is in order for the company to start commercial production of chips using 28nm high-K metal gate process technology in Q4 of this year.
The announcement was made by Morris Chang, chairman and chief executive officer of TSMC, during a conference call with financial analysts.
"We plan to have around 2% or 3% of our total revenue in the fourth quarter [to] be 28nm,” said Mr Chang.
“The tape-outs of the 28-nanaometer will start to ramp in the second half, starting in the third quarter and then more in the fourth quarter.
“But the real momentum [for 28nm], we believe, will be next year," concluded the company's CEO.
Although the estimated revenue from 28nm chip fabrication may seem like a bit much at first sight, this technology is expected by many major integrated circuit manufacturers.
Among those, AMD and Nvidia are among the most interested in TSMC's 28nm process as both companies plan to launch a new line of graphics cards later this year, based on the new manufacturing technology.
“TCMC's 28nm is industry-first and ready for primetime. Customer products are already taped-out and are in prototyping.
“We have superior performance, superior reliability and density, the density being two times over 40nm with our gate-last high-k metal gate process,” added Mr. Chang.
In January of 2011, NetLogic Microsystems was one of the first companies to announce that it has developed and taped out chip solutions built using TSMC's new fabrication node.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fabricates chips for a large number of companies, including AMD, Qualcomm, Altera, Broadcom, Conexant, Intel, Marvell, Nvidia, and VIA, and is the world's largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. (via X-bit Labs)