TSMC will build a separate plant for the production of processors for the iPhone and the iPad

Potential partners Apple hinted at the possibility of changing the usual production strategy for such a large customer as a manufacturer of iPhone and iPad. According to some reports, a contract supplier TSMC is ready for cooperation with Cupertino to build a separate plant.

 

Rumors about Apple want to move production of its own mobile processor Samsung production line at TSMC has repeatedly occurred, but still not confirmed. The two technology giants are not the simple relations in the field of patent law. At the same time Apple is a major customer of semiconductor products and LCD screens, manufactured by South Korean company. The new contractor for the production of microchips would not hurt Apple.

In a recent interview with the head of TSMC said that he sees meaning in the allocation for the needs of a major customer of one or more factories. The name of the client was not named, but all spoke in favor of the fact that Apple has offered to selected TSMC to build factories for their needs in exchange for investments. California Giant has an impressive stock of cash, as an example of a deal between ASML and Intel already has shown that in these days the contractors do not consider it shameful to ask for money for development from their partners.

However, waiting for revelations about the partnership Apple and TSMC has meaning only within the 20-nm process technology. The mass of these chips is expected to start only in 2014.

TSMC allowed to build a factory, designed for 450-mm plates

According to Reuters, the company TSMC, the world's premier contract manufacturer of semiconductor products, has confirmed the intention to build a factory designed for wafer diameter of 450 mm. On Monday it was announced that Taiwan's government has approved a request TSMC to build the company in the central part of the island. The total amount of the investment is estimated at 8-10 billion dollars.

 

The maximum diameter of the wafers used in the industry today, is 300 mm. Factories of the next generation will be calculated on a plate diameter of 450 mm. Transfer to a plate of larger diameter will reduce the cost of production, but he involves substantial costs and require solving many technical problems.

According to TSMC, the transition to the use of 450-millimeter wafers will take about five years. Other companies are also planning to launch production using 450-millimeter wafers. In particular, TSMC believe that such plans have a Samsung. As for Intel, the manufacturer intends to allocate up to $ 8 billion to expand business in Arizona and Oregon in the construction of a new factory that can process 450-millimeter wafer. Source: Reuters

TSMC produces an ARM processor from 3GHz

TSMC , also known as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, reserves some surprises. The last announcement of the company regards the place of positioning a milestone in the history of ARM processors: TSMC has been able to produce a processor, built-process 28Nm , which operates the incredible frequency of 3.1GHz .

 

This processor is a candidate to be the fastest ever produced with the architecture firm of Cambridge, and probably will remain so for quite some time. TSMC has stated that it is a dual core processor architecture with Cortex-A9 (the same as the NVIDIA Tegra 2 and Exynos on the Galaxy S II) and the frequency was "achieved under typical conditions" using a production process called HPM ( h igh p erformance for m obile applications ).

This process has been developed for tablets and other devices for world consumer , and the clearest demonstration of the ability of that process is this CPU. It would be interesting to have benchmarks to see how different are the performance compared to a normal processor operating in the 1-1.5GHz range. As stated by Cliff Hou, vice president of TSMC, "This work shows that ARM and TSMC can meet the market demands for high performance", so it may be permissible to see this line of solutions used in ultra-thin notebooks with ARM processors. I can not wait.

Processor ARM Cortex-A9, manufactured by TSMC 28 nm standards, working under normal conditions at a frequency of 3.1 GHz

According to the company TSMC, test dual-core ARM Cortex-A9, manufactured using 28 nanometer process technology, 28HPM, demonstrated the work at 3.1 GHz, "in typical conditions."

Fabrication process HPM, optimized by the criterion of performance and is designed for the production of chips for mobile devices. In other words, it allows you to combine high performance and low power consumption (reduced leakage currents).

Making a test chip is part of an effort TSMC, whose purpose is to demonstrate the capabilities of single-chip systems, produced at each level of technology development.

According to TSMC, 28-nanometer processor, clocked at 3.1 GHz, twice the performance of a similar product made by TSMC 40-nanometer process technology.

TSMC is having difficulty with the release of 28-nanometer production

According to industry sources, the world's largest contract manufacturer of semiconductor products TSMC is having difficulty meeting demand for 28-nanometer products. The main customers are companies TSMC Qualcomm, AMD and NVIDIA. It is believed that the situation will improve in the third quarter of this year.

However, Qualcomm agreed to transfer part of their orders for ARM processors for the company United Microelectronics (UMC), because the volume of products manufactured by TSMC, is not enough for the rapid market of smartphones and tablets.

AMD has introduced the first graphics accelerator based on a 28-nanometer GPU at the end of last year, but shipments family of video cards Radeon HD 7000 is still quite small.

NVIDIA has managed to release two cards based on 28-nanometer GPU Kepler: GeForce GTX 680 desktop PCs and GeForce GT 640M mobile, but, apparently, will also be forced to postpone plans.

For this reason, TSMC is considering the expansion of production . Construction of a new line in the factory Fab 14, which works with 12-inch (300 mm) plates, will begin April 9. Total for the year 2012 the company plans to increase production by 10%.