Industry Expert Blogs

Interesting article from Joel Hruska on ExtremeTech: Nvidia deeply unhappy with TSMC, claims 22nm essentially worthless . The title is a bit dramatic (poetic license) but the charts are accurate to the degree that 20nm costs will be significantly higher from the start and will continue to be higher throughout production and maturity.

One reason is double patterning, which is required at 20nm (double patterning splits a design into separate masks when devices are too close together). If 28nm masks cost $3M, 20nm masks will cost $5M or more. Another reason is design complexity: layout dependent effects (LDE) and process variation will get worse at 20nm, simulation and verification requirements will explode, and the list goes on…

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