TSMC needs to improve yield rates on 10nm first

The folks at Boston-based BlueFin Research Partners have recently given some much-needed commentary on the state of 10nm chip production at TSMC for Apple’s next-generation iPhone units.

It’s the thin edge of the wedge

Prices of 12-inch silicon wafers may rise by as much as 20 percent in 2017.

From the house of TSMC in 2017

The Kirin 960 is a 16nm SoC, that powered the Huawei Mate 9 and Mate 9 Pro, and is quite powerful, but it seems that Huawei plans a Kirin 970 SoC made using the 10nm FinFET manufacturing process and with obviously faster performance at lower energy consumption. 

A smaller version of existing 16nm technology

According to industry sources, TSMC is planning to introduce a 12 nanometer half-node process to enhance competition with 28nm and lower process nodes that have been adopted over the past few years.

And poaches Intel man

Taiwanese fab company TSMC has approved a capital injection of $4.91 billion at a board meeting.

It does not appear interested in 10nm

TSMC thinks that it can win back Qualcomm’s chip business with its 7nm process technology, but has all but given up expecting it to return for 10nm.

Up to 10 percent improvement over Helio P10

According to a report coming from China, MediaTek has released its new Helio P15 chipset, an upgrade to the quite popular Helio P10 chipset.

16nm doing well but 20nm slumps

Taiwan’s chip foundries are raking in more cash in the third quarter than ever before, according to a new report.

For anyone wanting risk next year

TSMC's co-CEO Mark Liu told yesterday's investors meeting that his outfit’s 7nm was well on track and will be ready for risk production in the middle of next year.

Thinks Samsung will be interested

Chipzilla has announced that it is making 14nm application processors for Spreadtrum and the pair might have Samsung as a client.