Samsung Begins Mass Production Of 10nm FinFET SoC, Galaxy S8 Likely Recipient
Samsung is leading the charge in FinFET production, at least in mobile. It mass produced the first FinFET mobile chips back in January of last year, and now it's leading the charge with 10nm FinFET production. This isn't lost on Samsung, which is all too happy to brag about its achievements.
"The industry’s first mass production of 10nm FinFET technology demonstrates our leadership in advanced process technology," said Jong Shik Yoon, Executive Vice President, Head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. "We will continue our efforts to innovate scaling technologies and provide differentiated total solutions to our customers."
While Samsung builds semiconductor solutions for various clients, including Apple, count Samsung to be its own customer as well. With the potential that 10nm FinFET has in SoC design, we'd be surprised if a custom solution based on its latest advancement didn't find its way into Samsung's next generation flagship smartphone, presumably the Galaxy S8.
The 10nm FinFET process uses an advanced 3D transistor structure. According to Samsung, it boasts up to a 30 percent increase in area efficiency with 27 percent higher performance or 40 percent lower power consumption, compared to its 14nm predecessor.
While getting to 10nm has proved troublesome in the semiconductor industry, Samsung said it overcame scaling limitations by using cutting edge techniques such as triple-patterning to allow bi-directional routing, which has the benefit of allowing it to retain design and routing flexibility from previous nodes.