Huawei, in partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), debuted the Kirin 980, the first mobile chip fabricated on a 7nm process. The Kirin 980 features 6.9 billion onboard transistors, about 1.6 times the number on the Kirin 970, while shrinking the die size down from 10nm. The result offers a 40 percent reduction in power consumption, and a 20 percent improvement in several processing metrics. That feat took 1,000 senior engineers three years and more than 5,000 prototypes to achieve success. Continue reading Huawei Kirin 980: First 7nm Mobile Chip Amps Up Processing

Building a new chip manufacturing plant is expensive, usually costing between $10 billion and $15 billion. GlobalFoundries has now opted out of building a cutting edge fabrication plant for 7-nanometer chips, indicating it plans to focus its attention on older 12-nanometer and 14-nanometer factories, which would require less investment. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said it would switch from GlobalFoundries to Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) for its latest chips. With the GlobalFoundries move, only TSMC, Intel and Samsung are left to build the new 7-nanometer factories. Continue reading GlobalFoundries Will Not Build Factory for 7-Nanometer Chips