Recently we’ve heard of Samsung and TSMC working on 14/16 nm chipsets that are supposed to be the future Apple Axx chipsets. Today we find out that ARM and TSMC have unveiled the next step in CPU innovation, by announcing a multi year agreement and the 10 nm FinFET process technology.
Their agreement will deliver the ARMv8-A processor IP optimized for the TSMC 10 nm chip. The transition from 20 to 16 nm FinFET seems to have been successful and ARM is happy with it, so it’s entrusting TSMC with its innovations. 10 nm chips may come as soon as fourth quarter of 2015, or at least manufacturer samples will. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will apply the knowledge gathered from the 20 nm SoC and 16 one to achieve even more power and better energy management on future chips.
The ARM ecosystem can also rely on the TSMC Open Innovation Platform (OIP), that includes a series of ecosystem interfaces and collaborative components, under TSMC’s supervision. I’m sure Samsung is not exactly liking this evolution, since they’re playing second fiddle to TSMC now.
