TSMC ready for 45nm production - 32nm in 2009

Yuh-Jier Mii, senior director, R&D division, TSMC indicated that the company recently brought its 45nm low-power process node to production. When the 45nm node is in production, TSMC will move on to the introduction of the low-power half-node 40nm process, and later, the generic 45nm node, he detailed. Industry players expect the first 45nm-made IC to hit the market during late 2007.

When production of 4xnm nodes is in operation, Mii said TSMC will begin development on the 22nm process node, along with the existing R&D on 32nm. The pure-play foundry anticipates its low-power 32nm process to be available in the fourth quarter of 2009 at the earliest.

Citing historical patterns, whenever a new process for logic IC is introduced, it usually takes another two years for such processes to be applied on mixed-signal, RF CMOS, and embedded memory production. But this trend is going to be changed with the time expected to shorten to 1-2 quarters in the future.

TSMC has reiterated that its process advancement will strictly follow Moore's Law, which implies that 22nm production should be possibly seen during 2011, said industry players. While reiterating Moore's Law as the backbone of technology advancement, the foundry is also striving to deliver a performance that is "more than Moore", but this slogan refers more to semiconductor backend production.