TSMC & 65nm, a status check

[Geo]

http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20060428PR205.html

Regarding the technology migration to 65nm, TSMC is satisfied about the yields and production progress. The foundry is confident about 65nm production margins but Tsai admitted that advancement to 45nm exposes the foundry to more challenges.

Tsai detailed that TSMC has already started producing low power and generic ICs on 65nm and the company will introduce high-speed ICs on 65nm in the second half of 2006. Some digital consumer applications have also started to employ 65nm, he added. Yields have shown obvious growth over the past two months, he noted.

And then there's 45nm, with an early shot across the bow on pricing:

When talking about shrinking production processes further, TSMC said it is relatively more challenging amid issues concerning technology and investment amounts. Tsai indicated that migration to 45nm will continue but the number of companies that can sustain profits for this migration are key concerns.

 

[INKster]

No word on 80nm half node yet ?

INKster.

 

[asicnewbie]

From what I know, TSMC, UMC, Chartered (the major dedicated foundries) have reached 'risk-production' with the 65nm node. This means the foundries will accept qualified designs for wafer production, but process tweaking is ongoing. For risk production, TSMC won't just accept orders from anyone; the design-submission has to pass certain criteria. And the customer's background has to meet certain criteria, too. (The screening is mostly to keep idiots from diverting precious production-capacity into fabbing goofy, non-working designs. In addition to in-house process development, foundries incorporate design-feedback from customer wafers, to help tweak the production line. At least TSMC does this, I don't know for sure about the others.)

Anyway, I'd expect ATI/NVidia already to be experimenting with 65nm silicon.

In general, I wouldn't rely on public press-releases to gauge foundry progress. They tend to lag far behind actual progress. At the bleeding-edge, there are really very few fabless customers and producers in the game. So it doesn't serve the foundry's interest to tell competitors the true status of its fab operations. Current customers and potential (serious) customers will have a formal business account (and NDA) with the foundry, so public press releases are really just ammunition for the foundry-fanb0is (like me )