Posted on Friday, November 14 2014 @ 13:36 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Even though we just came across a story that TSMC's 16nm FinFET mass production
may be delayed by a quarter or two, EE Times
paints a different story and notes TSMC seems to be pulling ahead of schedule as the company announced it entered risk production for its 16nm FinFET Plus process. Some analysts show great confidence in TSMC's FinFET schedule and there are rumors that yield rates are exceptionally well:
"We believe 20nm yields are approaching 80%, and 16 nanometer FF+ SRAM yields exceed 90%, improving confidence that FinFET will reach 1% of TSMC's third-quarter 2015 sales, 10% of fourth-quarter 2015 sales, and approaching 20% by the first quarter of 2016," Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams said in a Nov. 12 report following the TSMC announcement. TSMC "also may secure Apple for the next iPad in the fourth quarter of 2015 and iPhone 7 orders in 2016."
Yields for Samsung's 16nm FinFET process on the other hand are rumored to be pretty bad, which means TSMC may see increased business from clients dissatisfied by Samsung's process.
Still, analysts had concerns regarding Samsung's persistently low FinFET yield rate.
"Samsung's yield has been around 30-35% since the beginning of this year," Peng said. "We haven't seen any improvement. Apple and Qualcomm will shift more of their orders to TSMC if it can provide enough capacity."
