|
Claire Sung, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 13 January 2010]
Foundry chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), have been struggling to increase their yields on 40nm to over 70%, according to industry sources. The unsatisfactory yield rate has caused production for next-generation graphics processors and FPGA (field-programmable gate array) chips to run tight. TSMC, at its last investors conference, revealed that chamber matching problems had impacted yield rates for its 40nm node. It said the problems could be solved by the end of 2009. Clients using TSMC's 40nm node include GPU vendors AMD and Nvidia, and FPGA chip supplier Altera. United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) is also working with customers to volume produce 40nm products at its 12-inch (300mm) fabs. The sources claimed that FPGA chipmaker Xilinx, which has placed orders for 40nm-generation products with the foundry partner, has also moved to diversify its production sources to minimize the risk of shipment delays. Samsung Electronics earlier announced it has been selected as one of Xilinx' foundry partners for next-generation FPGA manufacturing. 
40nm wafer
Photo: Terry Ku, Digitimes, January 2010
Categories: Bit + chips IC design IC manufacturing Mobo, chipset Mobos Tags: 40nm Altera AMD foundry FPGA GPU Nvidia TSMC
|