Node Wars: A Look Back at 2014, and Different Roads for 2015
It’s a fun time of year to take stock of all that the industry achieved in the past year, and to anticipate the interesting trends coming in 2015.
2014-The Year 20 nm Hit It Big
As I discussed in this column a year ago, some initial 20-nm integrated-circuit (IC) designs went into production in 2013, but big growth wasn’t expected until 2014. That growth has certainly come to pass, with a big jump in foundry revenue at 20 nm in the second half of 2014. For the foundry leaders, 20 nm is now a solid ~10% of their total revenue, which represents a 10X increase year-over-year (YoY) in revenue. Not bad, eh? Why such a proliferation of 20-nm designs, you might ask? The simple answer is the plethora of advanced mobile devices we can’t live without these days—the iPhone 6/6+ being the most visible example. A number of 20-nm chips reside in the iPhone 6/6+, and sales have been brisk.
Full article by Michael White, Electronic Design
About the Author
Roger Chu is the Marketing Coordinator at GSAmart, the leading GSA sales and marketing partner for technology companies.
