Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

TSMC's 28nm Technology Now in Volume Production

By - Source: TSMC | B 31 comments

TSMC's 28-nm processing is now officially open for business.

Monday Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, said that its 28-nm process is now in volume production, and that production wafers have already been shipped to customers.

According to the company, the new process includes 28-nm High Performance (28HP), 28-nm High Performance Low Power (28HPL) and 28-nm Low Power (28LP) which are in volume production now. It also includes 28-nm High Performance Mobile Computing (28HPM) which will be ready for production by the end of this year.

Monday TSMC said that the number of customer 28-nm production tape outs has more than doubled as compared with that of 40-nm, residing at more than 80 tape-outs so far. "The TSMC 28-nm process has surpassed the previous generation’s production ramps and product yield at the same point in time due to closer and earlier collaboration with customers," the company stated in a press release.

"We applaud TSMC’s success bringing a robust 28nm process to market, and we look forward to leveraging the benefits of this new process when we ship our next-generation discrete graphics products," said Matt Skynner, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, GPU Division, AMD. "The combination of AMD’s industry-leading graphics IP and TSMC’s manufacturing prowess will enable the next big leap in graphics performance with the parallel compute horsepower and power efficiency designed to meet the needs of even the most demanding gamer."

TSMC's 28-nm design ecosystem is now available through its Open Innovation Platform, with qualified EDA design tools and third-party IP ready for customer designs, the company said.

Discuss
Ask a Category Expert

Create a new thread in the News comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

This thread is closed for comments
Top Comments
  • 17 Hide
    bennaye , October 25, 2011 2:20 AM
    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!
  • 15 Hide
    Parsian , October 25, 2011 2:23 AM
    cant they also fab AMD's CPU's??
  • 14 Hide
    aznshinobi , October 25, 2011 2:29 AM
    Hopefully this means that the 7xxx series won't be delayed.
Other Comments
    Display all 31 comments.
  • 17 Hide
    bennaye , October 25, 2011 2:20 AM
    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!
  • 15 Hide
    Parsian , October 25, 2011 2:23 AM
    cant they also fab AMD's CPU's??
  • 10 Hide
    johnners2981 , October 25, 2011 2:28 AM
    I would love a new card before the new year
  • 14 Hide
    aznshinobi , October 25, 2011 2:29 AM
    Hopefully this means that the 7xxx series won't be delayed.
  • 12 Hide
    dogman_1234 , October 25, 2011 2:30 AM
    12 more nanometres until QT takes effect. Can't wait to see where we go with this!
  • 8 Hide
    stereopsis , October 25, 2011 2:34 AM
    "cant they also fab AMD's CPU's??"

    +1 to above comment
  • 7 Hide
    JAYDEEJOHN , October 25, 2011 2:34 AM
    This is the one weve all been waiting for, cant wait
  • 4 Hide
    eddieroolz , October 25, 2011 2:52 AM
    Does this tie in with AMD's plans to move onto 28nm next year? Yes, I think so.
  • 5 Hide
    spp85 , October 25, 2011 2:56 AM
    AMD may switch form GF to TSMC of there CPU manufacturing.............
  • 2 Hide
    cyberkuberiah , October 25, 2011 3:00 AM
    good news :)  please give us the hd7000 and i hope GCN is impressive .
  • 3 Hide
    DroKing , October 25, 2011 3:15 AM
    Hopefully they apply that to bulldozer's 2nd gen or something ^_^ but sounding good so far either way.
  • 1 Hide
    Prince_Porter , October 25, 2011 3:38 AM
    This is great news indeed. It's time I start saving up for a new computer, hopefully this drops some prices for when I'm ready.
  • 2 Hide
    BigOlSillyGoose , October 25, 2011 3:42 AM
    SNB-E release next month + 7970 release by year's end = happiness explosion
  • 0 Hide
    tacoslave , October 25, 2011 4:08 AM
    bigolsillygooseSNB-E release next month + 7970 release by year's end = happiness explosion
    hell yeah im finally going to upgrade my phenom Ii 940 by this year hopefully
  • 2 Hide
    jdwii , October 25, 2011 4:14 AM
    Maybe Amd can get a product out on time now.
  • 1 Hide
    Swindez95 , October 25, 2011 5:11 AM
    So at current rate I believe the foundries are close to churning out a new smaller manufacturing process about every two years or a little more given that once a manufacturing node comes along they are already planning the next one. What I want to see what they plan to do when they can no longer physically make chips and such any smaller due to too much loss due to QT and the like. I mean there has been talks of different computing methods such as quantum computing but the only working prototype is still just a glimmer in the eye of engineers who are developing it. The only way I see future processors improving is through architecture design changes and not so much being able to fit more transistors in a given die size. However I do see there being alot of improvement if software, and I mean ALL software could take advantage of true parallel processing to use every last transistor to get work done. But we all know that isnt going to happen because hardware has always been far ahead of software and most likely always will unless something dramatic changes.

    No the only way I see physical improvements happening in the future is if big chip companies start funding more research into alternative processing methods like quantum computers and coming up with ways to represent data in more than just 0's and 1's. I know I might be far fetching this a bit but something somewhere at sometime is going to have to change dramatically or otherwise technological advances like we have seen in the past 10-15 years is going to slow to a mere crawl in the next 10-15 years in the computer segment.
  • 0 Hide
    de5_Roy , October 25, 2011 5:20 AM
    global foundries could learn something from tsmc.
    this meand the new 7xxx and 6xx gpus are well on track. i am hoping for a timely release for 7xxx in december :D 
  • 3 Hide
    saturnus , October 25, 2011 5:39 AM
    Parsiancant they also fab AMD's CPU's??


    Why would AMD chose a bulk process it's CPUs? GloFo's 32nm SOI process packs transistors as close TSMC's 28nm bulk process and while being similar to the high performance type has a power consumption per transistor similar to the low power type from TSMC.

    You're really comparing apple produce to Apple products here, ie. it's completely different things entirely.
  • -2 Hide
    palladin9479 , October 25, 2011 6:56 AM
    saturnusWhy would AMD chose a bulk process it's CPUs? GloFo's 32nm SOI process packs transistors as close TSMC's 28nm bulk process and while being similar to the high performance type has a power consumption per transistor similar to the low power type from TSMC.You're really comparing apple produce to Apple products here, ie. it's completely different things entirely.


    No its actually pretty much the same. AMD went with GoFlo because that's who they have a business deal with. With the recent low yields and productions problems they may be changing business partners.

    TSMC is an old company who has a pretty solid history, they churn out alot of chips every year, chips that go inside pretty much every electronic device on the planet.

    That is why someone would want to go with them, you know your product will get made, made the way you want it and made in the quantity you need.
  • 0 Hide
    palladin9479 , October 25, 2011 7:04 AM
    Quote:
    So at current rate I believe the foundries are close to churning out a new smaller manufacturing process about every two years or a little more given that once a manufacturing node comes along they are already planning the next one. What I want to see what they plan to do when they can no longer physically make chips and such any smaller due to too much loss due to QT and the like. I mean there has been talks of different computing methods such as quantum computing but the only working prototype is still just a glimmer in the eye of engineers who are developing it. The only way I see future processors improving is through architecture design changes and not so much being able to fit more transistors in a given die size. However I do see there being alot of improvement if software, and I mean ALL software could take advantage of true parallel processing to use every last transistor to get work done. But we all know that isnt going to happen because hardware has always been far ahead of software and most likely always will unless something dramatic changes.

    No the only way I see physical improvements happening in the future is if big chip companies start funding more research into alternative processing methods like quantum computers and coming up with ways to represent data in more than just 0's and 1's. I know I might be far fetching this a bit but something somewhere at sometime is going to have to change dramatically or otherwise technological advances like we have seen in the past 10-15 years is going to slow to a mere crawl in the next 10-15 years in the computer segment.



    3D chip stacking is what Samsung's going for now.

    http://www.samsung.com/us/news/newsRead.do?news_seq=19766&page=1&gltype=globalnews

    Currently chips are etched on several silicon wafers and layered ontop of each other. Going to a more dense 3D design would dramatically increase the amount of space available and reduce the power usage, but would also make heat dissipation a critical concern.

    http://chipdesignmag.com/lpd/blog/2011/10/06/samsung-micron-unveil-3d-stacked-memory-and-logic/
Display more comments