Industry Expert Blogs

TSMC has said it will ‘skip’ the 22nm process node as its next step on from the 28nm process that is due to roll this year. However, it might just be rounding error based on past performance, as the company is aiming for a ‘20nm’ process.

This will be the third round of the Taiwanese foundry’s attempt to demonstrate that it is ahead of the process curve compared even to Intel, which went into volume production with a 32nm process at the end of last year. However, as with TSMC’s 28nm and 40nm processes, it’s hard to know how this will compare to the 32nm and 45nm nodes that appear on more conventional roadmaps. With games like these, it’s easy to see why the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) gave up on the idea of naming nodes. Instead, it focuses on actual on-silicon measurements in its estimates of when processes will become available.