11 Feb 2015 at 22:29, Neil McAllister
[Snip]
"With iPhone 6/6S wafer demand momentum expected to taper off post January, we believe this implies that further Apple products could be using 20nm process (larger iPad, 4-inch iPhone refresh)," the analysts said.
They added that strong demand from FPGA vendors, Mediatek, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and others could mean TSMC will outperform Wall Street's first quarter revenue estimates.
TSMC, meanwhile, says it plans to put its recent windfalls to good use. Last week, it said it would invest approximately $16bn US dollars toward building new factories in the Central Taiwan Science Park, according to a report by Bloomberg.
It's believed that one goal of these new facilities will be to quickly ramp up a new process based on 16nm FinFET, a 3D silicon technology that's already being used by some of TSMC's competitors, including GlobalFoundries, Intel, and Samsung. It's been rumored that TSMC plans to begin volume shipments of 16nm wafers by the end of 2015.
TSMC's real hope, however, is that it will be able to leapfrog Samsung and deliver chippery based on a
10nm process by 2016.[Snip]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/11/tsmc_record_revenues/If TSMC can pull off 10nm chips by 2016 that means the IPhone, IPad, Play station, and Xbox are going to get significantly faster.
I can't believe the chip manufactures have been able to follow Moore's law so long, but I think it will soon come to an end.
