ARM and TSMC will lead Intel in SoC device

Published:2012/7/26 23:11:00 Author:Ecco From:SeekIC

According to foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the FinFET technology for ARM processors may not be in volume production until the second-half of 2015. Warren East, the CEO of ARM, is not concerned that Intel Corp. is developing a lead in process technology over the foundries that ARM licensees usually deal with.

With using FinFETs, transistors can stick up above the wafer surface. Therefore, FinFETs are considered to offer improved performance of transistors and to reduce leakage current in the off-state. However, Intel is already manufacturing in volume using in a 22-nm FinFET CMOS process while TSMC is attempting to ramp up planar 28-nm CMOS for is customers.

East indicated that Intel’s 22-nm FinFET is being used for high-volume PC chips but it would be an easy thing to make an SoC device with an extensive range of peripheral circuits in that process.

Nonetheless, ARM and TSMC will work together to lead Intel in the system-on-chip (SoC) technologies where they compete with Intel. "We are concerned about integrated SoC. For SoC Intel is manufacturing using 32-nm high-k metal gate planar CMOS. TSMC is manufacturing using 28-nm high-k metal gate. That doesn’t sound like a massive lead to me. If anything you could argue that TSMC is ahead,” said EAST.

ARM processor cores are also supported on a 28-nm fully depleted SOI (FDSOI) process developed by STMicroelectronics NV, and the foundry GlobalFoundries Inc. (Milpitas, Calif.) can transfer 28-nm to 20-nm.

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