TSMC will launch 12nm process, leaving GlobalFoundries in the dust

At the beginning of this year, the poor yield rate of Samsung, TSMC and Intel on the 10nm process was exposed one after another. Samsung was the most affected, because Qualcomm plans to officially launch the Snapdragon 835 processor in the second quarter of this year, and the yield rate problem will lead to continued supply shortages; Intel is the most relaxed. They released the 14nm KabyLake in early 2017, and the 10nm process has not yet been introduced into production; TSMC's 10nm process also has a low yield rate problem, but TSMC's largest customer Apple is preparing to release new products in September, so they still have time to solve the problem of low yield rate.

If 10nm fails to reach the yield rate that TSMC wants, the problem of insufficient production capacity will continue. For other customers who cannot get the most advanced 10nm process, using the improved version of 16nm is also a very good choice. TSMC's 16nm process first started mass production in 2015. Although many external sources said that TSMC's 16nm and Samsung's 14nm are just improved versions of the 20nm process, they are much better than 20nm in terms of performance and power consumption. When it was reported that TSMC's 10nm process yield rate was not improving, the news that TSMC would launch 12nm to save the situation began to spread.

The 10nm process launched by TSMC this time is actually a miniaturized and improved version of the existing 16nm process, with lower leakage rate and cost, and surpasses Samsung's 14nm process in terms of line width. TSMC renamed the improved 16nm process to 12nm in order to counter the process advantages of competitors such as Samsung, GlobalFoundries, and SMIC, and firmly control the 10-28nm wafer foundry market.

In fact, GlobalFoundries withdrew from the 12nm FD-SOI process last year. Compared with the 16nm FinFET process, the 12nm process can reduce power consumption by 50%, improve performance by 15%, and reduce mask costs by 40% compared to 10nm. However, since Samsung has clearly stated that their 10nm process is mainly for low-power platforms, GlobalFoundries directly skipped 10nm and started the research and development of 7nm process.

Although TSMC has used the 16nm process for four generations, their more mature process allows them to achieve mass production and shipment in a shorter period of time; GlobalFoundries is in a slightly awkward position, as their 12nm FD-SOI will take more time to mass produce, which will cause them to continue to lag behind the world's most advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.