TSMC 28nm mass production next year

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. revealed today that the manufacturing readiness of 28nm process equipment has reached more than 90% after adjustment and will be put into mass production in 2011 as scheduled.

TSMC 28nm process equipment is mainly located in the Fab 12 fab located in the Hsinchu Industrial Park. Its maturity is less than 50% in the fourth quarter of 2009, and now it has exceeded 90%, paving the way for volume production. TSMC explained that the more advanced the semiconductor process is, the lower the maturity of the initial production process will be, and the more adjustment will be needed. For example, the maturity of the 90nm process equipment is almost 100% from the very beginning, and there is basically no need to adjust.

The main customers of TSMC's 28nm process are Altera, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Xilinx, and have successfully taped out as many as 71 IC products. AMD/NVIDIA's next-generation GPU core and AMD's second-generation low-power Fusion APU fusion processor will be outsourced to TSMC 28nm.

TSMC said that by the end of 2011, 28nm process capacity will be fully utilized.

In addition to the 28nm, TSMC is also urging equipment and raw material suppliers to accelerate the development and deployment of 20nm processes.