Altera Said to Place Contract With TSMC for 20nm Process Service

Taipei, Sept. 14, 2012 (CENS)--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has reportedly landed a huge contract from field programmable gate array (FPGA) IC giant Altera Corp. for 20nm process foundry service although the foundry supplier will start pilot production of 20nm chips early next year, according to Taiwan's press media.

Altera will adopt TSMC's 20nm foundry process and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to make its next-generation chips, which are built on three-dimension architecture.

Using CoWoS technology, Altera is able to integrate memory IC, application-specific IC and optics-transmission interface IC on a silicon chip. The company pointed out that 20nm chips using CoWoS technology can integrate 10 times more heterogeneous ICs than do 28nm chips while enjoying lower costs and power consumption.

TSMC will begin pilot production of 20nm and CoWoC chips early next year. Altera will become first buyer of TSMC's 20nm process service, whose volume production is likely to start in the second half of 2013 if everything goes smoothly as expected.