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Samsung has taken a lead in the mobile SoC segment by switching to a 14nm FinFET manufacturing process, bringing more energy efficient designs to what’s on offer at TSMC and GlobalFoundries. The move clearly had an effect on TSMC’s shares, which at the close of last week were at a nine-month low.

The vendor has mentioned that it will be looking to commence production of its 16nm process in the third quarter, and it now looks like that is finally taking place. In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, TSMC revealed that its ““16nm [chips] smoothly entered volume production as expected.”

TSMC also mentioned that production of a 16nm FinFET+ node was underway, with higher yields expected later this quarter. It is on this node that Nvidia will be looking to get its next-generation GP100 Pascal GPU manufactured, as the chip vendor finally looks to make the switch to 16nm next year.

TSMC’s 16nm FinFET+ node will deliver twice the density and 65 percent higher speed at 70 percent less power than the current 28HPM process. While a launch date was not mentioned by Nvidia, it is likely we’ll see an announcement sometime in Q1 2016, with the hardware becoming available in Q2.

Source: TaipeiTimes