Once the leading provider of semiconductors for major league players such as Apple and Qualcomm, TSMC has been overtaken by Samsung and the South Korean smartphone giant's superior 14 nm FinFET technology. The company, no doubt feeling that it will lose its market share considerably in the semiconductor race, has expedited its chip roadmap for the year 2016 and 2017, where it plans to release 10 and 7 nm chips respectively.
According to Fudzilla, the company claims that it will commence risk production of integrated circuits using its 7 nm process technology in 2017. In actuality, what this means it that mass production of commercial 7 nm products will most likely begin in 2018, leaving a gap of 12 months. TSMC began developing its 7 nm fabrication technology in early 2014 and according to the website, the tech firm claims that it has completed developing the majority of key elements of the new manufacturing process.
According to Mark Liu, TSMC's president and co-CEO has stated that:
"TSMC's 7 nm technology will leverage most of the tools used in 10 nm, in the meantime achieve a new generation of technology value to our customers. The 7 nm technology risk production date is targeted at early 2017."
Due to slow production issues, TSMC was out-favored by Samsung when Apple started looking for a firm that could provide the Cupertino tech giant with chips fabricated on a superior architecture. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820, which is to be announced later this year, is also expected to possess Samsung's 14 nm FinFET process. The South Korean firm was able to display the prowess of its superior architecture through its Exynos 7420 SoC, which outpaced Snapdragon 810 in processor benchmarking applications.
If TSMC is able to achieve its goal, then the company might be able to snare back the lost companies that had employed it in the first place.
