Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) announced Wednesday that it has entered risk production for its 16-nanometer FinFET Plus (16FF+) process.

It is yet another sign that the world's largest chip foundry is ahead of schedule with its first 3D chips that will be at the core of a new generation of smaller, more powerful mobile devices, according to analysts who cover the company.

"They only took about three-and-a-half quarters to migrate to this new geometry from 20 nanometers in the first quarter of 2014," said Carlos Peng, an analyst with Fubon Securities. "That's a little bit faster than the industry average."

TSMC is conducting small-volume shipments of 16FF+ this quarter, according to Peng. The company's announcement of the "milestone" included endorsements of the process technology by customers such as Avago Technologies, Freescale, LG Electronics, MediaTek, Nvidia, Renesas, and Xilinx.

"Those customers have only placed orders with TSMC, which shows a lot of confidence that TSMC is well ahead of Samsung" with FinFET, Peng said.

TSMC President Mark Liu said in a press release:

Our successful ramp-up in 20SoC has blazed a trail for 16FF and 16FF+, allowing us to rapidly offer a highly competitive technology to achieve maximum value for customers' products. We believe this new process can provide our customers the right balance between performance and cost so they can best meet their design requirements and time-to-market goals.

Other analysts show greater confidence in TSMC's FinFET schedule.

"We believe 20nm yields are approaching 80%, and 16 nanometer FF+ SRAM yields exceed 90%, improving confidence that FinFET will reach 1% of TSMC's third-quarter 2015 sales, 10% of fourth-quarter 2015 sales, and approaching 20% by the first quarter of 2016," Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams said in a Nov. 12 report following the TSMC announcement. TSMC "also may secure Apple for the next iPad in the fourth quarter of 2015 and iPhone 7 orders in 2016."

TSMC's technology position with its strong 20nm yield ramp and development on 16nm FF+ has resulted in an early and steeper ramp of 16nm FF+, Abrams said.

Szeho Ng, an analyst with BNP Paribas, wrote in an Oct. 16 report: "We see signs of key clients re-engaging with TSMC." The company "is also pulling forward FinFET capacity builds." The pact between Samsung and GlobalFoundries "offers little assurance of smooth production" next year. "TSMC's prior view of it having a smaller initial [FinFET] share is no longer valid; its focus on tech production excellence works again."

By: DocMemory
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