Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has unveiled its first 40nm node. The new node consists of two different processes, one power-efficient low power process, 40LP, and one performance-driven general purpose process, 40G. The former will be used with chips for mobile phones, PDAs and other mobile devices, while the latter will be used to produce our beloved GPUs, processor and other high-end chips, such as those found in our video game consoles.
”Our design flow can take designs started at 45nm and target it toward the advantages of 40nm,” said John Wei, senior director of Advanced Technology Marketing at TSMC. ”A lot of TSMC development work has gone into ensuring that this transition is truly transparent. Designers need only concentrate on achieving their performance objectives,” he said.
The new process sports 2.35 times raw gate density over 65nm, and 15% reduced power scaling over the 45nm node. The 40nm footprint is linearly shrunk from the 45nm node and clients can easily be transferred from 45nm to the 40nm node.
From the press release:
”The 40nm process employs a combination of 193nm immersion photolithography and extreme low-k (ELK) material. The logic family includes a low-power triple gate oxide (LPG) option to support high performance wireless and portable applications. Both the G and the LP processes offer multiple Vt core devices and 1.8V, 2.5V I/O options to meet different product requirements.”
