Posted on Thursday, November 06 2008 @ 0:19 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
TSMC unveiled it will ramp up 32nm production next year, with 22nm production slated for 2011 and 15nm for 2013.
While Moore's Law still applies, the shrinking of technology nodes will have to overcome the barriers of power consumption and costs, commented company vice president for research and development Jack Sun.
Sun noted that the pace of cost reduction for transistor production has been slowing. The costs declined by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29% between 1993-2003, but between 2003-2018 the CAGR decline will be 26%, meaning the more advanced the processes, the harder it is for costs to come down, Sun pointed out.
It will be even harder to reduce production costs after the industry enters the 32nm node, he said.
One way to further cut production costs is to migrate to 18-inch wafer production, Sun said.
Source: DigiTimes
