You’ve been hearing about the 10 nanometer FinFET process that was started last year by Samsung and has been the trend with chip manufacturers these days. As expected, the 10nm generation of chips gives substantial bumps to performance numbers. The thing is, they could be more difficult to manufacture, and reports generating from foundries in Taiwan say that their yield rates have been low and could affect smartphone launch schedules on the whole.
TSMC, one of the biggest foundries in Taiwan, is scheduled to manufacture MediaTek’s 10nm chipset – the Helio X30. Smartphones with this chip are expected to be available by Q2 of 2017, but that schedule could now be compromised due to these low yield rates that reportedly will not scale with the demand for the new chips.
Samsung’s own foundries are manufacturing two 10nm chips – the Exynos 9 8895 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835. You may realize that one of the reasons why the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 has been pushed back – apart from the safety issue originating from the Note 7 production – is that the yield rates of Samsung’s foundries have also been low.
If these foundries are somehow able to improve their yields, smartphones powered by 10nm chips might still account for 10% of shipments from Q2. Industry pundits say that it is unlikely that these numbers will climb drastically by Q3.
SOURCE: Digitimes
