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Samsung Headed For 14nm Semiconductor Manufacturing Milestone With ARM

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News Posted: Mon, Dec 24 2012 3:19 PM
At this rate, one has to wonder if die sizes won't be infinitesimal in 10 years. As process technology improvements continue to enable SoC makers to create smaller and smaller chips with more and more power, Samsung has been at the forefront of the push. Now, Synopsys has announced that its multi-year collaboration with Samsung on FinFET technology has led to a major milestone: the successful tapeout of the first test chip on Samsung's 14LPE process.

While the FinFET process offers significant power and performance benefits compared to the traditional planar process, the move from two-dimensional transistors to three-dimensional transistors introduces several new IP and EDA tool challenges such as modeling. The multi-year collaboration delivered the foundational modeling technologies for 3D parasitic extraction, circuit simulation and physical design-rule support of FinFET devices. Synopsys' comprehensive solution for embedded memory, physical design, parasitic extraction, timing analysis and signoff is built on this foundation.

Synopsys worked closely with Samsung to develop a test chip that validates Samsung's advanced 14-nm FinFET process as well as Synopsys' DesignWare Embedded Memories using Synopsys' Self-Test and Repair (STAR) Memory System solution. The test chip will enable the correlation of the simulation models to the FinFET process and contains test structures, standard cells, a PLL and embedded SRAMs. The memory instances include high-density SRAMs designed to operate at very low voltages and high-speed SRAMs to validate the process performance.

There's no clear word on when this innovation will actually be available for mainstream use, but it'll no doubt make our smaller gadgets of the future a heck of a lot more potent.
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RTietjens replied on Mon, Dec 24 2012 5:20 PM

Ray, you do know that die sizes are limited by the physical size of atoms, right?

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HarleyLowSpeed replied on Mon, Dec 24 2012 8:21 PM

Actually there is also a family of quantum particles which are smaller than an atom called Mesons. This family includes pions, kaons and B-Mesons which all consist of quarks and anti quarks.

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kalqlate replied on Mon, Dec 24 2012 9:09 PM

Actually, if you're considering mesons for use in electronics, foggeddabbouddit: they are only created in high-energy collisions and decay in just a few hundredths of a microsecond.

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Atticus14 replied on Tue, Dec 25 2012 12:56 AM

I wonder who has the better FAB, Intel or Sammy. Both seem to be at the top of their game, but as far as I know Samsung doesnt make anything as big as Intel Cpus, so its not an apples to apples comparison.

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mhenriday replied on Tue, Dec 25 2012 10:45 AM

Not to mention subthreshold conduction problems, which these 3-D gates are designed to counteract. Still to get much smaller, I suspect devices working on rather different principles will be necessary ; I understand, however, that such are in the pipeline. Human ingenuity is fantastic - that is, if we luck out and manage to avoid blowing ourselves to smithereens....

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RiCoFrost replied on Wed, Dec 26 2012 2:30 PM

I bet intel already have a number of faster CPUs but as they have no real competition are holding back. Thank god Samsung are now looking like they will compete were AMD failed.

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