TSMC: 7nm will be mass-produced in 2018, Bitcoin mining machine chips are on the rise again

On November 16, the mainstream chip of Bitcoin mining machine is 28 nanometers. Antminer S7 adopts TSMC's 28 nanometer fully customized process, which reduces power consumption by 50% compared with the previous generation. Avalon A6 also adopts 28 nanometer process, which is slightly higher than Bitmain's BM1385 in power consumption. Dragon Mine adopts Samsung's 14 nanometer process and is expected to be launched at the end of 2015. Recently, Lightning Miner launched a project of 16 nanometer Bitcoin mining chip, and the Bitcoin mining machine market was in chaos.

In the semiconductor industry, whoever masters the most advanced manufacturing process first can call the shots. As technology becomes increasingly complex and Moore's Law is almost invalid, the importance of advanced technology becomes more and more prominent. Advanced technology has also played a significant role in promoting the Bitcoin mining industry, greatly improving computing power while reducing power consumption. The competition among mining machine manufacturers is becoming increasingly fierce. Whoever is the first to use advanced technology and achieves perfection in this technology can seize the market.

TSMC President and Co-CEO Mark Liu recently revealed: "The recent progress of our 10nm process development is very exciting and in line with our plan. The technical risk trial production is scheduled for the end of this year, followed by a large number of customer product verifications. Mass production will begin at the end of 2016." TSMC's other president and co-CEO CC Wei then added: "We will put 10nm into production in the fourth quarter of 2016, but the actual product shipments will be in the first quarter of 2017."
Although TSMC lags behind Samsung in FinFET technology, the 16nm FinFET has finally been put into mass production in the second half of the year. In addition to Apple's A9 processor, HiSilicon's Kirin 950 also commercially uses the more advanced 16nm FinFET Plus process for the first time. In addition to stabilizing 16nm process customers, TSMC now needs to actively promote the research and development of next-generation processes. Previously, it said that the 10nm process would be put into mass production in 2017, but TSMC is actually more radical and is accelerating the 7nm process, striving to mass produce the 7nm process in advance in the second half of 2018.