United Microelectronics (UMC) will move to aggressively develop 14nm process technology featuring FinFET 3D transistors, according to company CEO Shih-Wei Sun. Deploying Finfet transistor technology is now a must for chipmakers in order to keep Moore's Law applicable, said Sun.

Moore's Law sketches out the concept of shrinking semiconductor device dimensions, but the shrinking of technology nodes will have to overcome some challenges, particularly cost-related barriers. The transition to 20nm process technology shows that the pace of cost reduction for transistor production has been slowing, Sun pointed out.

Transition to a newer process should enable a 25% improvement in performance, and the manufacturing cost per transistor should also fall at the same rate in order to be cost effective, Sun said. The current shift to 20nm process from 28nm has encountered problems associated with rising equipment costs for double patterning techniques, and performance is only able to see a 15% improvement, Sun indicated.

"Based on our IBM FinFET licensing, UMC has decided to aggressively develop 14nm FinFET technology on 20nm metal. 14nm FinFET will deliver the most optimal low-power and high-performance solution to offset the cost impact from using double patterning lithography," Sun said.

In addition, Sun revealed that UMC has taped out a mobile communications IC using 28nm HKMG (gate-last) process, with commercial production slated for early 2014. Sun did not provide updates on the foundry's targeted sales ratio for 28nm, and progress on 20nm.

Sun previously remarked that 28nm process technology would account for about 5% of UMC's revenues by the end of 2012, and that the foundry expected to start making a small volume of chips using 20nm process sometime in the second half of 2013.

By: DocMemory
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