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TSMC announces move to 20nm process
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 14 April 2010, 18:26 IST
Bangalore: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has announced at its 2010 Technology Symposium that it will skip the 22 nanometer (nm) manufacturing process node and move directly to a 20nm technology. The move is value driven to make advanced technology a more viable alternative for its customers.
During his address to nearly 1,500 TSMC customers and third party alliances, Shang-yi Chiang, TSMC Senior Vice President, Research and Development, said that the move to 20nm creates a superior gate density and chip performance to cost ratio than a 22nm process technology and makes it a more viable platform for advanced technology designers. He also announced that TSMC is expected to enter 20nm risk production in the second half of 2012.
The technology will be based on a planar process with enhanced high-K metal gate, novel strained silicon, and low-resistance copper Ultra-Low-K interconnects. Chiang also indicated that the company has demonstrated record-setting feasibility of other transistor structures such as FinFET and high-mobility devices. The technical rationale behind the move is based on the capability of innovative patterning technology and layout design methodologies required at these advanced technology nodes.