Samsung starts later this year with 2nd gen 10nm production

Later this year Samsung will start production at 10nm. While this years GPUs finally move to 14/15/16nm based on FinFET transistors the race to 10nm already has started. Production at the end of the year brings Samsung in line with TSMC as well.

Currently Samsung is working hard on the second generation of its 14nm fab, and for 10nm there actually is a second generation in development as well (no volume production currently though). The developed 10nm gen 2 design would be another 10% faster. 

Samsung said that 10nm would be an improvement over the existing 14nm process, in addition to providing improved performance and possibly reducing cost as well. The company announced that it will start manufacturing second-generation 10nm chips this year. The 10LPE (Low Power Early) process will be followed by 10LPP (Low Power Plus), which is expected to provide 10-percent performance improvement. A chip design done in 10LPE could easily be ported to 10LPP process.

TSMC on its end already would like to make a move to 7nm within two years. Currently TSMC sits at 16nm which is roughly equal to Samsungs 14nm fab. For 7nm, Samsung as well claims that it fully intends to deploy extreme UV (EUV) to mass produce 7nm chips. 

Samsung is going well with its 14nm process and plants in Korea and Texas running at full steam, shipping 0.5 million wafers to date. The race for smaller and smaller is ongoing, I wonder what will happen once they reach 1nm, the sizer of an Atom.