TSMC: 7nm Now Biggest Share of Revenue

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• SydneyBlue120d - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  Astonishing achievement, kudos to TSMC.

• DanNeely - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  Looking at the pie chart breakdown, I'm wondering what's special about the 150/180nm processes that they're still 8% of revenue when the newer and smaller 90/110/130nm ones have much smaller residual shares.
  
  Looking at how quickly it's share has imploded since 7nm came out, I'm also wondering if 10nm will be going away entirely in the next year or two.

• deepsubmicronwarrior - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  "what's special about the 150/180nm processes that they're still 8% of revenue when the newer and smaller 90/110/130nm ones have much smaller residual shares."
  
  It's highly likely those geometries are 8 inch wafers vs. others being 12 inch wafers, which means wafer starts for those geometries are low-cost and low-risk. #speculation

• drexnx - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  that makes a lot of sense, .13u was around when most fabs went to 300mm wafers

• e1jones - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  A company I worked for a few years ago had an ancient 4-inch wafer fab that made the sensor elements for a sensor we developed. I never asked what size process it was, but it was probably somewhere between huge & enormous....

• woggs - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  That's puts it at ~10um and maybe 5um at best.

• name99 - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  I don't know what you mean by sensor, but most optical equipment, although it uses semiconductors, and uses some lithography (eg to create ridges and waveguides) is not defined by "nodes" in the way that logic and memory are. The difficulties, and the advances, happen along very different dimensions.
  
  For example right now one dimension is trying to expand wavelengths, to get beyond far infrared to THz lasers. (These can be manufactured today, but tend to be based on non-linear processes, so are extremely low power). A second dimension is improving existing tech (like ICLs and QCLs) for higher efficiency, or higher power, or covering a broader band.
  
  The high end devices are created from artificial materials. ie you lay down a layer (one or two or three atoms high) of one element, then a similarly thin layer of a second element, then a third, and repeat this say fifty to a hundred times. Designing this correctly, and then fabricating it successfully, is where the magic is. Once you have the material, the actual laser fabrication (lithography, etching) is pretty vanilla.
  
  This tech is still being done with tiny wafers (often 2 inches). Laugh if you like --- but there are many ways to be complicated, and atomic layer epitaxy is just as tough in its way as creating 7nm finFETs.
  
  What does this give you? Primarily it gives you a laser that can be used for spectroscopy in the mid-IR, which is probably the best single band for distinguishing different molecules. So you get a gadget that can do things like
  - non-invasive glucose level detection (just shine it at your skin, no needles) for diabetics
  - or you can breathe into it, and trace chemicals in your breath can diagnose different issues
  - or you can mount it on a bridge, with an attached camera, and sense the pollution level of cars driving by. No need for annual smog check, and on-going detection of offenders (no passing smog check, then modifying your engine)
  - or you can look at scattering through the atmosphere and detect pollution (from factories, or leaks from pipelines or storage)
  - or less invasive explosives detection at airports and suchlike
  ...
  
  Pretty much all of this has been demo'ed in labs. Pretty much none of it is yet commercially available, but that's on track. You CAN today, buy things like fancy microscopes that allow you to point at a spot in your sample and get told what chemicals are there; or suitcase sized devices that you can take to a factory and it will tell you all the chemicals around it.
  
  The on-going goal is to get this stuff ever smaller, ever cheaper, so that one day it's built into your iPhone. That may seem optimistic, but there was a time when things like the IR VCSELs in your iPhone (part of FaceID) were way too large and expensive to be used for that task...

• e1jones - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  This particular sensor was magnetic, specifically looking at the magnetic threads in currency (bills). As far as I remember, the US magnetic thread was 'dumb', either there was one, or there wasn't. The thread in the Euro actually had a barcode pattern that was unique per denomination... ie different between 5/10/20/etc Euro.... so for machines setup for Euro, the barcode pattern was part of the authentication process. If the various other sensors (optical incl.) said one thing and the magnetic thread said another, the machine might call it a counterfeit.

• FunBunny2 - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  here's an analogy: way back when, I worked in a Swiss screw machine (look it up) shop that still ran mostly cam machines when CNC was taking hold. they had an old Bechler that did nothing but cut brass tubing, with OD chamfer, into about 2 inch lengths. two shifts, 6 days. went into GM carburetors. yeah, so capitalists will milk machines until it costs too much to keep them running.

• UpSpin - Thursday, January 17, 2019 - link

  Leakage current gets worse the smaller the node is.
  http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/014...
  So for low power applications, like sensors which don't need processing power, a small fabrication process would be counterproductive. So small slow but low power microcontrollers.
  
  It's also likely that some military/space designs use ICs based on these large but robust fabrication nodes. In such cases it's also very expensive to switch the node, due to testing and validation.
  
  'stupid' ICs, like motor driver,... also need to get produced by someone.