Semiconductors - TSMC and 7nm will revitalize major chip players Though the emphasis on chip technology discussion often centers around the likes of Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm, one of the biggest players is contract foundry TSMC. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company represents more than 50% of the fabless semiconductor production in the world, building for those same companies listed above, including Intel for select projects like modems.
There is competition in the field, mostly stemming from the likes of Samsung and GlobalFoundries, in terms of leading-edge technology capability. Samsung has targeted TSMC’s market share as an area for its own growth with dramatic investmentsin R&D and production capability. GlobalFoundries is smaller, but spunky, pushing ahead with new tech like EUV, hoping to become a “fast follower” to the Taiwanese giants. Even Intel has talked about opening its fabs to external production, but the impact there has be minimal thus far.
Despite the pressure from other companies, TSMC continues to be the leader in both revenue and, debatably, roadmaps. Last week during an analyst call the company announced it had started high volume production of 7nm FinFET silicon, with 18 different products taped out from its customers. A tape-out is the term for the final chip validation that enables volume production to begin. TSMC expects to have 50 total 7nm tape-outs by the end of 2018.
7nm is of particular interest to the semiconductor industry as it will bring wide adoption from a host of different applications. For years, 16nm FinFET technology has been the stalwart of TSMC’s portfolio and is where the bulk of high performance chips like graphics and CPUs have remained. This is despite the fact that 10nm process technology has existed since late 2016. 10nm has only been utilized by a few key partners including Qualcomm and Apple, targeting more on power efficiency than raw performance products. Chips that demanded higher performance capability (frequency) stuck with the 16nm node.
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