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ARM Holdings and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) have announced a collaboration on 7nm chips. They have already worked together to create CPUs at the 16nm and 10nm process nodes. There is no indication that extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) will be used for 7nm chips, whereas IBM used the technology for its 7nm demonstration chip last year:
IBM was the first to announce the creation of a 7nm chip, although the innovative processes it used to create it also meant that mass production wouldn't be possible for a few more years, due to the high cost. Chances are that IBM's 7nm chips could arrive sometime in 2018, or in 2019 at the latest.
Intel has already delayed its 10nm chip production to the second half of 2017, which means its 7nm chips won't arrive until late 2019, or even early 2020. That gives IBM and other companies the opportunity to surpass Intel in cutting-edge process technology for the first time.
It's not clear when TSMC will be mass-producing 7nm chips. However, knowing that its 10nm chips are likely to appear early next year, then chances are that its 7nm chips will be ready sometime in 2019, potentially surpassing Intel with quicker production of 7nm chips, too.
Also at The Register .
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 16 2016, @06:20PM
I don't know about that. They've been far ahead in process node, even with the 10nm Cannonlake delay. The fact that ARM and TSMC won't be able to use EUV in time for 7nm is very interesting, since it was assumed that would be the node where EUV would need to be deployed. It's a little shocking when you think about it. It was supposed to be available years ago, but if this information is correct, it will only be used for 5nm, 3nm, 2nm, 1nm, 0.5nm (whichever of these are possible, 0.5nm is in single atom territory).
Intel's big problem is still ARM and Apple dominance in mobile CPUs. Even though smartphone and tablet chip growth is slowing, that's a huge market where Intel is just sputtering (tied to the success of Surface of all things). ARM isn't in many desktops or non-tablet laptops, but a trend towards laptop/desktop docks for smartphones could reverse that. Like what the Ubuntu Edge was supposed to do.
Intel is doing well in servers/HPC. Nobody ever got fired for choosing Xeon, and Xeon Phi is successfully fighting off GPUs to be included as coprocessors in supercomputers. ARM success in hPC is very uncertain, especially if it is tied to the plans of companies like... AMD.
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