Mass production of 20-nm semiconductor company TSMC beginning at the end of the first quarter of 2014. This allowed Apple to prepare for the September launch of new smartphones and the October announcement of new tablets, which are based on 20-nm SoC Apple A8 and A8X. With the next generation of Apple devices is not so smooth. It is known that the 16-nm process technology TSMC - it's the same 20-nm as process, but only using FinFET transistors instead of the planar transistor. In other words, the transition from the issue of 20-nm SoC to 16 nm can be conditionally "instantaneous".
TSMC Company does not see a significant increase in revenue from the 20-nm process in 2015, which means that one will be able to flow in the other: folding release SoC A8x will be replaced by the start of production GPU AMD and NVIDIA. Instead of expanding the 20-nm production company TSMC will start at the end of the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2015 to the production of 16 nm and will continue to only develop this process technology. Again emphasize that the first production 16-nm SoC will begin to appear in June or July 2015, which is risks for Apple's plans to start deliveries of the next innovations in September-October 2015. However, TSMC company hope that no problems will arise. These expectations are based on experience with the 20-nm production.
For the release of the 16-nm TSMC solutions company produced two process technology: standard with the prefix "plus." According to the chief technologist of the company, the usual 16-nm process is under production since November last year. During this time, he went through all the stages of the qualification and is ready for implementation (but will have to wait until next summer, ). A little more than an interesting process technology 16 FinFET Plus seventh of October this year was held four stages of qualification. In November, all the necessary procedures to verify FinFET Plus 16 will be completed. As recognized in the company of these employs over 1,000 engineers TSMC. It is interesting that most of the customers are also interested in TSMC process technology 16 FinFET Plus, so you can expect the beginning of production of 16-nm-making in such "format."
Compared with the 20-m SoC solutions with the rules of 16 nm promise to raise productivity by 40% while maintaining the same level of consumption or to reduce consumption by 50% while maintaining performance. But this comparison is interesting only if we still wait for the 20-nm production by AMD and NVIDIA. It is also interesting to note that for the 16-nm process technology company TSMC notes SoC peak frequency at 2.3 GHz. It is weakly correlated with the "40% of productivity growth", as 2.3 GHz - the ceiling of the 28-nm SoC.