Where is DRAM Innovation?

The article, Hynix 30 nm DRAM layout, process integration adapt to change ,  discusses advances in DRAM memory at Hynix. DRAM memory has not been able to shrink the memory cell as quickly as flash memory. Leading edge flash memory products with dimensions around 20nm or less are being introduced to production, while DRAM memory is still above 30nm (see figure 4 in the article below).


While flash memory has a key advantage of keeping the information even without power, there is still a place for DRAM memory. Many of the process technology advances are being implemented at a slower rate in DRAM production. However major memory cell and circuit improvements are not being pursued. For example, storing multiple bites in one physical flash memory cell has been done for several years. There are 3-bit-per-cell (TLC) NAND and 2-bit-per-cell (MLC) flash available in the market, but there is no DRAM product with multiple bits in the same cell.

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

MLC Flash Memory New Future

A new development by Macronix has the potential of extending flash NAND memory technology for several additional generations.


In 2012 IEDM conference Macronix engineers presented a paper on radically improving flash memory program /erase cycling endurance to more than 100 million cycles by localized heat treatment .  Currently, most advance flash NAND products are limited to less than 100,000 cycles. The larger memory devices, called MLC flash, can store 2 or 3 bits in each memory cell. However, their cycling endurance is limited to less than 10,000 cycles. The new heating method will increase the cycling endurance of MLC flash. An improved cycling endurance would enable development of higher density MLC flash cells with larger numbers of bits per cell.

Macronix's new heat treatment that heals the memory cell can impact other layers in the memory cell. For example, it can change electromigration properties of metal lines nearby. It can also produce mechanical stress around the heat spots. The impact of the heat treatment has to be optimized, since the potential of creating larger flash memory looks promising. Already Macronix will present a flash memory chip with 6 bits per cell at the 2013 ISSCC.


Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Ranking Top IC Foundries (Pure-play and IDM) for 2012

The article below about top IC foundries ranks from 2010 through 2012 documents Samsung's improved foundry position.  The improvement was mainly due to Samsung's complex relationship with Apple.

"the Samsung/Apple IC supply relationship is the large amount of memory, both DRAM and flash, that Apple buys from Samsung, the largest memory manufacturer in the world. Since Apple is such a big memory customer, Samsung is able to “bundle” its IC offerings to Apple and deliver a cost-effective high-volume supply of leading-edge flash memory, DRAM, and application processors to the company."

Samsung is trying to diversify away from Apple (see Samsung Foundry Replacing Apple)

The turn around time for designing and qualifying of a new microprocessor design in a new fab vendor takes many months. Only very few companies have the processing and fab capacity capabilities to manufacture and design a new microprocessor (i.e. Intel and TSMC) This is a result of the continuing consolidation of the semiconductor industry (see March comments Moore's Law End?).

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.

Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Samsung Jumps to #3 in 2012 Foundry Ranking, Has Sights Set on #2 Spot in 2013

Apple's application processor business still driving Samsung's foundry success, but for how long?

The 2013 McClean Report analyzes the top 12 IC foundries (pure-play and IDM) for 2012 (Figure 1). TSMC remained the leader; in fact, TSMC’s 2012 sales were almost 4x that of second-ranked GlobalFoundries and more than 10x the sales of the fifth-ranked foundry SMIC. ...

More

TSMC 28 nm Process Reverse Engineering

Chipworks has produced an interesting report with some good TEM crossections of the most advanced products of Nvidia, Altera, Xilinx, Qualcomm and others fabricated on TSMC 28nm process.


"The 28 nm generation was the first time TSMC used high-k metal gate (HKMG) transistors. The HP and HPL technologies feature HKMG transistors, while the LP uses conventional poly gates, with an ONO gate dielectric."



Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Samsung Foundry Replacing Apple

The article below discusses Samsung's efforts to supply chips to Chinese and other emerging smartphone makers to reduce their dependence on Apple. More about Chinese smart phones at Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact) . It would makes sense for Samsung to diversify their chip production to other smart phone vendors. Other semiconductor areas such as DRAM memory are not growing as they used to (Flash Memory Growth & Sales Surpass DRAM).

It takes years to shift from one foundry vendor to another. Designing the A6x or A7 new processor and the details and design rules of the manufacturing process is slow and complicated.
I already discussed this in September 2012 Apple Cutting Out Samsung Chips?

("Teardown of iPhone 5 reveals that none of the DRAM, and NAND memory and other chips on the iPhone were made by Samsung. Already in the iPad (See March iPad teardown) Samsung had fewer parts than in the prior Apple products. Samsung is still making the A6 processor for Apple.").

Additional information - iPhone A6 Teardown Update .

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/



Samsung seeks broader chip base as Apple cuts loose
Credit: Reuters/Steve Marcus, By Miyoung Kim, Wed Jan 9, 2013 5:03pm EST

Stephen Woo, president of Device Solutions Business for Samsung Electronics, talks about the new Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 9, 2013. The processor is faster and uses less power than Samsung's previous models, Woo said.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co is looking to supply chips to more Chinese and other emerging smartphone makers, the head of its system chip business said, to counter any fall-off in demand from Apple Inc, which is weaning itself off Samsung chips used in its iPhones and iPads.

Samsung and its main U.S. rival, and biggest customer, together account for more than half the global smartphone market, and the South Korean group is the main supplier of mobile processors, or application processors (AP), powering both Apple devices and its own range of Galaxy phones and tablets.

But, as Apple looks to be less reliant on its rival for parts for its gadgets - it is already buying fewer Samsung memory chips and display screens as the two have gone to war over patents - concerns have grown that Samsung may see its processor revenues tumble.

"As there are just two smartphone makers that are doing really well, chipmakers supplying them have grown in tandem. So we plan to bolster our relationship with those key customers," Stephen Woo, president of Samsung's System LSI business, which makes processors for Apple products, said in an interview.

Supplying processors for Apple products has been the mainstay of Samsung's system chips business.

Goldman Sachs estimates Samsung's AP chip sales to Apple will rise to 9.3 trillion won ($8.8 billion) this year, or nearly 80 percent of Apple's spending on Samsung processing chips, memory chips and flat screens. But that could tumble to just 2.5 trillion won next year, as Apple will shift 30 percent of its AP business from Samsung and eventually 80 percent by 2017, according to Goldman.

"(We) should diversify our customer base and are making such efforts already, adding some Chinese customers," Woo told Reuters ahead of his first keynote speech at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

China's Meizu, one of the local smartphone newcomers, uses Samsung's Exynos quad-core chip for its MX smartphone, and Lenovo's K860 LePhone is also powered by Exynos.

Still, Samsung's mobile processor business is almost entirely tied to the fortunes of Apple and its own mobile business - the Galaxy range. By comparison, chip rivals such as Qualcomm Inc, Texas Instruments and Nvidia have a broader client base - from LG Electronics Inc and Nokia to HTC Corp, Huawei Technologies Co and Google's Motorola.

"We see emerging players who have potential to grow in smartphones and we will continue to make efforts to supply them with our chips," Woo said.

The mobile processor market, driven by roaring sales of smartphones and tablets, is a bright spot for a semiconductor industry that is struggling with falling computer sales. Research firm Gartner estimates the mobile processor market will grow 30 percent this year to $13.5 billion and hit $16.5 billion next year.

To strengthen its chip capability, Samsung bought UK chipmaker CSR Plc's mobile phone connectivity and location technology for $310 million last year, and it is now looking at how it can improve modem chip technology, especially the baseband chip solution that enables wireless devices' radio communications.

"Baseband is a very important segment, but we don't have it. Given its importance, we're reviewing various options," Woo said, suggesting Samsung could be scouting for potential targets.

Qualcomm is the biggest baseband chip company with nearly 50 percent of the market, followed by the likes of Mediatek, Texas Instruments and Broadcom.

Chipmakers are increasingly seeking to produce a single chip solution that combines AP, modem chip and connectivity chips that support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and near-field communication functions, in one chipset. This combo-package is popular among low-end smartphones as it allows phone makers to cram various chips into compact devices.

Woo said Samsung, however, was not considering expanding into a single chip solution and will instead continue to focus on pure AP chips favored for high-end phones, as it allows manufacturers to differentiate their hardware offerings with various chip combinations.

The explosion of mobile devices has opened a big opportunity to Samsung as Intel Corp, the world's top chipmaker, struggles to crack the mobile processor market dominated by the makers of ARM Holdings licensed chips. Samsung is the biggest maker of ARM-based chips, such as Apple chips and Samsung's Exynos brand.

Intel's market share in mobile devices is just 1 percent, as UK chip designer ARM holds a near monopoly.

Woo said Samsung was not looking to break into the desktop computer or server processor market - which Intel dominates, but is under threat from ARM-based chips that boast low-power consumption and compact design.

"For the time being, our focus will pretty much be on enhancing our AP offering, especially for high-end mobile devices," he said.. At his keynote speech, Woo unveiled Samsung's latest "Exynos 5 Octa" processor, tailored for high-end smartphones and tablets.

The new processor boasts eight cores: four to handle processing-intensive tasks and four to take on lighter workloads, to conserve battery life.

Glenn Roland, vice president and head of new platforms at Electronic Arts, demonstrated its processing power by running the high-octane, fast-paced "Need for Speed: Most Wanted", on a Samsung reference tablet.

Other guests at Woo's speech included ARM Chief Executive Warren East, Microsoft chief technical strategy officer Eric Rudder, and former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

Samsung also unveiled a prototype phone with a flexible display that can be folded back and forth - almost like paper - by replacing a glass panel with super-thin plastic to make it bendable and unbreakable, as well as a smartphone equipped with a curved display.

"It won't break even if it's dropped. This new form-factor will really begin to change how people interact with their devices, opening up new lifestyle possibilities ... allow our partners to create a whole new ecosystem of devices," said Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung Display, a flat-screen unit of Samsung Electronics.

($1 = 1062.9500 Korean won)
(Editing by Ian Geoghegan, Bernard Orr)

Fabless Catching Up to IDM Sales

Fabless semiconductor companies continued to increase their shares relative to IDM sales in 2012 as the graph shows.


More about it from IC Insights is below.


Earlier reports from August 2012 Samsung,a Top IC Foundry in 2012 and Semiconductor Ranking: Foundries Soar, Japanese Crash


Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/





Fabless IC Company Sales “Shine” While IDM IC Sales “Slump” in 2012
upcoming McClean Report 2013, IC Insights

Contrary to some opinions, the fabless/foundry business model shows no signs of "collapsing."
IC Insights’ 2013 edition of The McClean Report shows that the fabless IC suppliers grew by 6% in 2012, 10 points better than the 4% decline registered by the IDMs (i.e., companies with IC fabrication facilities) and eight points better than the 2% decline shown by the total IC market last year.

As shown in Figure 1, except for 2010, fabless company IC sales growth has outpaced IDM IC sales growth (or the decline was less severe) since 1999.

Figure 1 Fabless vs. IDM Company Sales. Source: IC Insights

The year 2010 was the first and only time on record that IDM IC sales growth (34%) outpaced fabless IC company sales growth (29%). Since very few fabless IC suppliers participate in the memory market, they did not receive a boost from the surging DRAM and NAND flash memory markets in 2010, which grew 75% and 44%, respectively.

Another reason for relatively poor showing by the total IC fabless segment in 2010 was that some of the large fabless IC suppliers like MediaTek and ST-Ericsson, registered growth that was less than half the total 2010 IC industry average. However, the fabless IC suppliers once again grew faster than the total IC market beginning in 2011 by registering a 5% increase as compared to a 1% decline in sales for the IDM companies.

Figure 2 compares fabless-company IC sales to IDM-company IC sales since 1999. As shown, the 1999-2012 worldwide IC market displayed a modest 5% CAGR. In contrast, total IC sales from the fabless IC companies during this same timeframe increased at more than three times this rate and registered a very strong 16% CAGR. As a result of this trend, fabless IC company sales increased over 7x from 1999 to 2012 whereas total IDM IC sales were up less than 50% over this same timeperiod. Moreover, the IDM companies’ IC sales in 2012 were only 10% greater than they were 12 years earlier in 2000 and were less than they were five years ago in 2007.

Figure 2 Source: Fabless (Foundries) vs. IDM Sales. IC Insights

Given the big disparity in the 1999-2012 CAGRs between the fabless IC suppliers and the IDMs, it comes as little surprise that, except in 2010, fabless IC companies have been increasing their share of the worldwide IC market (Figure 3). As shown, in 1999, fabless IC company sales accounted for just over 7% of the total IC market. However, in 2012, fabless IC suppliers represented 27.1% of worldwide IC sales, a new record high.

Figure 3 Fabless sales as a precentage of WW IC sales. Source: IC Insights

IC Insights forecasts that in 2017, fabless IC companies will command at least one-third (33%) of the total IC market (especially if more large companies like IDT, LSI Logic, Agere, and AMD become fabless over the next five years). Over the long-term, IC Insights believes that fabless IC suppliers, and the IC foundries that serve them, will continue to become a stronger force in the total IC industry.

Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact)

Apple is having hard time competing in emerging market due to MediaTek.

Apple CEO Cook Returns to China Amid Falling Market Share

The New York Times article below expands about MediaTek rise.

"Despite having reported record sales of the iPhone 5, the U.S. technology giant’s presence on the mainland flagged in 2012; it was pushed out of the top five smartphone makers in that market during the third quarter, with just 8 percent of the market, according to the research firm Canalys.

As Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE surged ahead of Apple, a major force behind their success was MediaTek, a Taiwanese chip maker...entered the smartphone business late, introducing its first chipset in 2011 inside a Lenovo phone. But within a year and a half, analysts say, MediaTek has taken 50 percent of China’s market for smartphone chips.

That success has come with the adoption of what MediaTek calls a “turnkey solution.” Rather than simply provide a chip, the company also offers instructions on how to build a phone, the software architecture to run it and dedicated consultants to advise phone makers through the production process"

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Providing a Template to Challenge Apple

By LIN YANG, January 6, 2013

TAIPEI — In the China smartphone market, Apple has seen better days.

Despite having reported record sales of the iPhone 5, the U.S. technology giant’s presence on the mainland flagged in 2012; it was pushed out of the top five smartphone makers in that market during the third quarter, with just 8 percent of the market, according to the research firm Canalys.

As Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE surged ahead of Apple, a major force behind their success was MediaTek, a Taiwanese chip maker whose products have drastically reduced the cost for manufacturers of getting new phones to market.

The company entered the smartphone business late, introducing its first chipset in 2011 inside a Lenovo phone. But within a year and a half, analysts say, MediaTek has taken 50 percent of China’s market for smartphone chips.

That success has come with the adoption of what MediaTek calls a “turnkey solution.” Rather than simply provide a chip, the company also offers instructions on how to build a phone, the software architecture to run it and dedicated consultants to advise phone makers through the production process. MediaTek’s chief financial officer, David Ku, describes this as a franchise model in which all the clients have to do is “turn on the burner.”

Peter Liao, an analyst at Nomura Securities who covers the industry, said MediaTek saved phone makers the often prohibitive cost of research and development.

“It typically takes a lot of money and time to develop a new handset model, but MediaTek comes in and provides a total solution,” Mr. Liao said.

The company has proved wildly popular among Chinese phone makers. Besides supplying Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE, MediaTek also supports lesser-known manufacturers, including those that make so-called bandit phones that imitate premium models from Apple, Samsung and HTC.

TCL Communication Technology Holdings, a Chinese phone maker that sells phones primarily in Europe and Latin America, uses MediaTek’s chips. Its chief operating officer, Wang Jiyang, said that when his company works with MediaTek, its only major design tasks are to make the software more user-friendly and to tailor the look and feel of the phone.
“In general, with MediaTek’s help, we’re able to achieve almost twice as fast time to market, compared to other solutions,” Mr. Wang said.

MediaTek was founded in 1997. It started out making chips for home entertainment electronics like DVD players and televisions before moving into components for CD and DVD-ROM devices. In 2004, it began making chips for small mobile phones.
MediaTek estimates that it will lead the Chinese market by selling 110 million smartphone chips in 2012, up from 10 million chips a year ago.
By comparison, Qualcomm, the global leader in smartphone chips, is expected to finish 2012 in second place in China with 82 million chips shipped, according to the research firm DigiTimes.
MediaTek has been powered by consumers like Zhang Ying, 31, who want to try the latest technology but not pay a premium for it. Mr. Zhang, a Shanghai resident, bought a knockoff HTC phone last year. “Every person has a price point,” he said. “At a time when some of my friends were buying Samsung or iPhone, I wanted to show that I can keep up with them. A lot of domestic phones are cheap and of fairly good quality.”
People who think like Mr. Zhang are dominating sales, especially among first-time smartphone buyers. In a September report, McKinsey, the global consulting firm, estimated that 69 percent of all smartphones sold in China would cost less than 1,500 renminbi, or about $240, by the second half of 2013.
And MediaTek is taking its business model to other emerging markets. The company’s products support features that are popular in developing countries, like noise-reducing speakers and slots for two SIM cards.
In India, local brands like Spice and Micromax are rolling out lower-priced smartphone models using MediaTek parts. In Brazil, phones by Motorola Mobility, as well as local brands like Gradiente and Multilaser, will also have MediaTek chips.
“The markets we target have 5.8 billion people, whereas the U.S. and Europe have less than one billion,” said Mr. Ku of MediaTek. “I need to aim at a global market, not just developed countries.”

MediaTek also released a chip last year for building basic smartphones that work in regions without mobile data networks. Users of these phones rely on Wi-Fi connections to download multimedia. These phones can cost as little as $50, or 312 renminbi.

Those chips now account for 40 percent of MediaTek’s smartphone chip sales, according to the company.

Mark Hung, an analyst at the research firm Gartner, calls the network-less chip one of the “fastest-growing smartphone segments,” as many consumers are looking to switch from their simple mobile phones to basic, low-cost smartphones.

“This is a fairly new phenomenon, and as you can expect, mostly in emerging markets, including China,” Mr. Hung said.

For now, Apple has signaled that it has no intention of competing on price. The iPhone 5, released in China on Dec. 14, cost 300 renminbi more than the two previous models, the iPhone 4S and 4, on their release days. More than two million units of the iPhone 5 were sold during its first weekend.

By contrast, Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE have rolled out new phones with similar performance at a third of the iPhone 5’s price of 5,288 renminbi, and sometimes less.

“We believe that emerging countries should also be able to enjoy the use of information technology with the same computing power,” said Tsai Ming-kai, chief executive of MediaTek.

As the world’s largest market for smartphones, China is quickly becoming a bellwether for the progress of sales wars globally. The Chinese experience may show that any leading market position can be fickle, and new brands can appear seemingly out of nowhere to capture significant market shares.

Apple remains No. 2 in smartphone shipments worldwide after Samsung, but its position could be threatened as the competition expands to more consumers and more price points.

“Emerging economies are getting stronger,” Mr. Tsai said. “The industry dynamic is always evolving. Anything can happen.”

3D Flash Memory Marching Forward

3-D Flash starts to appear in the market. Hynix version is based on VSAT technology.


See more about VSAT at http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/3D_Charge_Trapping-CT_NAND_Flash.pdf .


The dramatic iincrease in flash memory cycling endurance (mentioned in IEDM 2012) is likely to extend the life of the basic flash NAND technology.


Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/







Hynix to start sampling 3D flash memory chips

04 Jan 2013

South Korean memory semiconductor supplier SK Hynix said earlier this week that it would begin mass production and sampling of 3D flash memory chips that utilises vertical-stacked-array-transistor (VSAT) technology, according to a report by the Korea Times.

Flash chip, which is a type of non-volatile memory that can be erased and reprogrammed, is ideal for data-intensive devices that constantly connect to the Internet. It has a simple cell structure that allows for higher memory capacity, density and durability.
"As far as I know, all major semiconductor companies are investing more in the development of 3D flash memory chips. SK Hynix is trying hard to mass produce them as early as possible," said CTO Park Sung-wook. Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning to produce 3D flash memory chips in its plant in Xi'an, China upon completion of the facility.

TSMC and GlobalFoundries 3-D Transistors (FinFETs)

Foundries are trying to catch up with Intel 3D FinFET transistors at the 14nm process, while maintaining an older interconnection process.

"they’ll take a half step. They will replace planar transistors with a denser array of FinFETs, but they won’t advance the manufacturing process used to build the wiring that connects the devices on the “back end” layers of the chip. As a result, although there will be more transistors in any given area, a good number of them won’t be connected and therefore can’t be used. The chips won’t be much smaller than the 20-nm generation, which is going into production now. "

See more about Intel's 14nm Process and Manufacturing Roadmap and a Tutorial: Intel 22nm 3D Tri-Gate FinFETs Transistors 


Additional information about the foundries transition is GlobalFoundries Tips 10nm Process

Ron
http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/



Foundries Rush 3-D Transistors

Nearly two years after Intel, the world's leading foundries scramble to get FinFETs into the hands of chip designers

By Rachel Courtland / January 2013

The 3-D transistor is poised to go mainstream. After falling behind Intel, the world’s biggest foundries are all gearing up to produce these cutting edge switches. And to accelerate the process, some have opted to take an unusual step: marrying the new transistors with an older approach to building the wiring that ties them together on a chip.


The hope is that this hybrid strategy will help foundries make 3-D transistors, or FinFETs, available to most of the world’s semiconductor firms by 2014, a good year earlier than anticipated. That could help close the gap with Intel, which unveiled the first commercial 3-D transistor process in 2011 and likely aims to supply the technology, with few exceptions, only to itself. Intel plans to release the transistors in smartphone and tablet chips tailor-made to compete against the foundries’ customers. 


Chipmakers are switching to FinFETs because each time they have shrunk their ordinary, planar transistors, manufacturers have seen a smaller performance gain. FinFETs—which effectively turn the transistor’s current- carrying channel on its side to create a fin—carry more current and leak less of it, making for circuits that perform better and use less power. GlobalFoundries, Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), and United Microelectronics have all made it clear that they plan to pursue the technology. They aim to introduce FinFETs at the 14-nanometer-manufacturing-process node—a step, more or less, behind Intel’s 22-nm introduction. 


To get there, both GlobalFoundries and TSMC have revealed they’ll take a half step. They will replace planar transistors with a denser array of FinFETs, but they won’t advance the manufacturing process used to build the wiring that connects the devices on the “back end” layers of the chip. As a result, although there will be more transistors in any given area, a good number of them won’t be connected and therefore can’t be used. The chips won’t be much smaller than the 20-nm generation, which is going into production now. That means the foundries won’t be able to create more of them on a single wafer to reduce costs. Nonetheless, GlobalFoundries expects the chips it will produce could be as much as 55 percent faster or 40 percent less power hungry than the 20-nm generation. 


For GlobalFoundries, the advantage of this halfway approach is that it will let the company keep more than 7000 design rules that were developed for the 20-nm planar chip, while changing just 60 or so that are needed to describe the fin, says Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries. “First- generation FinFET is a huge challenge. There’s no question about it,” says Kengeri. “Adding more risks to that by adding other complexi ties that were not necessarily fin- related was not prudent.” All told, the hybrid approach should allow the company to accelerate production by a year.


Illustration: Emily CooperFINS ARE IN: Three-dimensional transistors, or FinFETs, control current between the source and drain more effectively by surrounding the transistor channel with the gate on three sides.
Click on the image for a larger view.TSMC, which calls its FinFET scheme a 16-nm process, says its chips are “similar” in size and density to other foundries’ 14-nm offerings. Later this year, both TSMC and GlobalFoundries hope to create small batches of test chips for customers and are targeting full production in 2014, which will put the companies’ releases more or less on the same schedule as that of Intel’s own 14-nm chips.


“I think this incremental strategy is probably a very sound, safe way of not changing too many things at the same time and developing something they can be sure can be production worthy,” says Chi-Ping Hsu, who heads up research and development for the Silicon Realization Group at Cadence, an electronic design automation firm based in San Jose, Calif.


FinFETs are “a huge challenge for the whole industry,” Hsu says. He estimates that his team at Cadence has already spent some 4000 man-years overhauling computer code for today’s generation of chips so that processor operation can be simu lated in a realistic time frame. FinFETs, which boast stronger electrical effects on their neighbors and have dimensions that can’t be adjusted, are an added challenge. Hsu reckons it will cost the foundries and their partners some US $6 billion to develop the manufacturing prowess and the computational tools needed to make 14-nm and 16-nm chips.


Whether the investment will pay off in the end is unclear, says Sam Tuan Wang, chief analyst for semiconductor foundries at Gartner. “People say if Intel can do it, I can do it. That’s not true,” he says. We may not have to wait long to find out.

Flash Memory Growth & Sales Surpass DRAM

See in August 2012 Flash Memory Sales Surpass DRAM  , and DRAM Market Plateau/ Flash NAND Growing

While the NOR market size is not growing as fast as NAND market it is still big enough to make the combined flash market bigger than DRAM market.

More on NOR market in a previous comments Flash NOR Memory Revival and in my May 2007 article on Long Term Trends in the NOR and NAND Markets

Ron


http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/




Flash overtakes DRAM
David Manners,   Thursday 20 December 2012 10:09

The flash memory market will grow 2% to $30bn in 2012, overtaking the $28bn DRAM market for the first time, says IC Insights.

With the exception of 2010, the DRAM and flash memory markets have been growing closer in size to each other for several years but demand for flash used in portable media devices, coupled with two years of weaker demand and price erosion for commodity DRAM used in personal computers, will finally be enough to push total flash sales beyond those for DRAM this year, says IC Insights.

Among portable media devices, smartphone shipments are projected to finish the year up 55% to 750 million units and shipments of tablet computers are forecast to rise 80% to 117 million units.

Through 2017, the flash memory market is expected to widen its lead over DRAM. In fact, IC Insights forecasts the NAND flash memory market alone will be larger than the DRAM market beginning in 2013.

Among more than 30 product segments classified by WSTS, NAND flash is forecast to have the third-highest average annual growth rate through 2017, trailing only the market growth rates for tablet processors and cellphone application processors.
NAND flash sales are forecast to increase 14% annually from 2012-2017, growing to $53bn at the end of the forecast period while the DRAM market is forecast to grow 9% annually over this same time.