Samsung has told prospective industry partners and journalists, at an invite only event in Silicon Valley, of its plans for starting a second generation 10nm process later this year. The South Korean tech giant was over in this iconic area of California trying to convince chip designers to use its foundries for their upcoming projects reports Re/Code.
Samsung Semiconductor boss Kelvin Low told Re/Code that “We think we are leading again. This is not a one-time success story.” To help cement its success Samsung is refining both its 14nm and 10nm processes. Samsung is readying both a new cost-optimized 14-nanometer process (self-explanatory), as well as a second generation of 10-nanometer technology process.
With the second generation 10nm process Samsung will move from its 10LPE (Low Power Early) process to a 10LPP (Low Power Plus) process, which is expected to provide an extra 10 per cent performance boost. Samsung 10nm LPP process will use thinner wiring and users will also benefit from better power efficiency – great news for both mobile users and data centre server deployments.
Re/Code asserts that Qualcomm decided to use Samsung foundries to make its Snapdragon 820 chip as it provided a performance advantage over processors made at rival facilities. Meanwhile Apple is thinking differently, as it has awarded the majority of its A10 chip orders to Taiwanese chip foundry TSMC.
On the subject of Samsung Semiconductor rivals TSMC, we recently learned that the Taiwanese outfit will tape-out 15 to 20 customer chip designs on its 7nm process by the end of 2017 with mass production in the following year.
Looking ahead to 7nm, Samsung thinks 10nm “will be a much longer node than other foundries are claiming it will be,” reports the EE Times. It’s not just about the race to smaller processes says Samsung’s Low, production needs “to be cost effective to the masses” and for EUV to be efficient enough to back that up.
