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GlobalFoundries, the world’s second largest contract maker of semiconductors, plans to start volume production of chips using 14nm fabrication process in the first half of 2015, a little later than Samsung Electronics, but, possibly, earlier than Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. The company does not reveal who will be the first customers to use the manufacturing technology, but claims that there will be at least a number of them.
“We plan to begin volume production with a 14nm LPE (low power early) process in the first half of 2015 and then push ahead with a 14nm LPP (low power plus) process in the second half of the year,” said Chuck Fox, senior vice president of global sales at GlobalFoundries, in an interview with DigiTimes.
Samsung Electronics recently confirmed that it had begun mass production of chips using 14nm LPE fabrication process. The company did not reveal what kind of chips it makes and for whom, but market rumours suggest that at least one chip is Samsung’s own Exynos application processor for next-generation Galaxy S6 smartphone, whereas other chip or chips are intended for Apple’s future consumer electronics devices, such as Apple Watch.
GlobalFoundries will make chips using 14LPE fabrication process for numerous undisclosed customers, one of which could be Apple. The majority of GF’s customers reportedly prefer more advanced 14LPP fabrication process, which is supposedly due to be available in the second half of 2015.
“Based on chip design projects commissioned by our clients, we believe a number of clients will produce wafer starts using 14nm LPE process initially,” said Mr. Fox. “However, we expect the number of clients as well as wafer orders to grow robustly when we enter the 14nm LPP process, which will help ramp up our market share and sales significantly.”
One of the most interesting things to find out is whether AMD plans to use GlobalFoundries’ services to make chips using 14LPE or 14LPP fabrication processes in 2015. Officially, the chip designer implies that next year it will sell chips made using 20nm and 28nm manufacturing technologies, but, perhaps, the company does not disclose all of its plans and there are surprises incoming.
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KitGuru Says: One of the key things about GlobalFoundries 14nm plans is whether the company will beat TSMC with 14nm FinFET time-to-market. TSMC is on-track to start volume production of chips using 16nm FinFET process technology in late Q2 or early Q3 2015. If both Samsung and GlobalFoundries are ahead of TSMC, then this will mean a lot for the foundry industry.
Every year, it is amusing to hear speculation about how Samsung and GlobalFoundries will put pressure on TSMC.
Yet, without fail, TSMC keeps taking more market share of the worldwide foundry business. This year, TSMC’s market share has risen to 53%. People need to understand that TSMC is the supersized giant with very high yield per wafer. Also, TSMC has additional strengths in having the “largest portfolio of process-proven libraries, IP, design tools, and reference flows” for manufacturing ARM-based RISC chips.
TSMC revenue: $24 billion (for 2014)
Taiwan’s UMC: $4.3 billion (for 2014)
GlobalFoundries: $4 billion (for 2014)
Samsung: $3 billion
TSMC had a net income of $6.2 billion last year. It should hit $8 billion in net profit for this year.
GlobalFoundries has been losing about $250 million per year for the last two years.
Samsung posted a loss of about $1 billion for its foundry business this year.
Samsung and GlobalFoundries are fighting for the table crumbs.
In conclusion, TSMC is the dominant market leader with 90% of the worldwide foundry profits. Samsung and GlobalFoundries are laggards and losing money. Samsung and GlobalFoundries are only good at issuing press releases. They can’t seem to deliver.
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“Apple Has Blown A $1 Billion Hole In Samsung’s Business
Business Insider
Aug 5, 2014 – As a result of Apple’s switch, Samsung’s chip-making business is expected to have an operating loss this year of 877 billion won, or ~$851 million.”
I have one question about those processes… Is there any 14 nm High power node or from this point on everything is either low power early and low power plus???? Could author answer me because it is really interesting in some aspects…
No samsung and GF will make obviously a 14nm HP process, that will be good for desktop-class chips
Cool. Thanks. 🙂
At the end of this year, and begining of the next there will be some nice products introduces to market