[ ET ] Seeing double: TSMC adopts new lithography technique to push Moore’s law to 20

[iAMunderDog]

"As process nodes shrink, it’s become increasingly difficult for the major semiconductor foundries to offer compelling advantages at each new node. TSMC recently disclosed some additional information about how it intends to build 20nm chips using double patterning. The technique, while vital to constructing processors at this node, comes with some significant costs."

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...hography-technique-to-push-moores-law-to-20nm

IN short:
- more expensive CPU's and GPU's
- Higher performance
- Lower power consumption

 

[CakeMonster]

IN short:
- more expensive CPU's and GPU's
- Higher performance
- Lower power consumption

That's not really telling us anything whatsoever. All of that has already happened especially if you look at GPUs.

 

[CakeMonster]

So, trying to make sense of the article, there seems to be no indicator about exactly how expensive double and quad patterning is. There is no source for the graph indicating costs. I don't know enough about the process to even make a wild guess, like if there's going to be any effect on the cost or adoption of 14nm CPUs or 20nm SoCs. From just this info I guess no one can really tell. Nor do we know how the various players are progressing on the lasers. Would they tell us if they had it almost ready? Will the ARM producers stall at 20nm because of costs and face being outperformed by Intel? It would be interesting to get some qualified input to the extent that it is possible.