Intel: 22nm FinFET and 14nm are cost-effective

EE Times reports Intel shared some details about its 22nm process. The chip giant said the company's 22nm FinFET process is cost effective, contradicting reports that it's 30-40 percent more expensive than TSMC's 28nm planar process. Intel says the addition of FinFET adds only 3 percent to the cost of the process. Full details at EE Times, the site also discusses some news about IBM's 22nm progress.

Bohr said Intel’s 22-nm FinFET process is cost effective, contradicting report it is 30 to 40 percent more expensive than TSMC’s 28-nm planar process. The addition of FinFET adds only 3 percent to the cost of the process. Its use of 80-nm minimum feature sizes can be made with a single pass of 193-nm lithography tools, making it cost effective.

Projections from an IMEC keynote that 14-nm wafers will be 90 percent more expensive than 28-nm parts due to the lack of EUV lithography are inaccurate, Bohr asserted. The cost increase for 14-nm wafers at Intel “is nowhere near that,” he said.

“Cost per wafer has always gone up marginally each generation, somewhat more so in recent generations, but that’s more than offset by increases in transistor density so that the cost per transistor continues to go down at 14 nm,” Bohr said.