ARM has, in cooperation with chipproducent TSMC, a testchip has been designed and manufactured with a Cortex-A57 processor on board. The testchip was on 16nm produced, in which so-called finfets, a special type of transistors, were used.
To make transistors according to a 16nm process of manufacture, must have a way to leakage currents to reduce be used. Finfets, transistors with a special, ‘three-dimensional’ vinstructuur, ensure a large surface. That results in lower leakage currents and therefore lower power consumption and better performance of the transistors. The 16nm finfet technology by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was developed, for the ‘tape-out’ of the testchip used, so report both companies.
The testchip is not yet in production, but serves as a demonstration for the technology. Together with TSMC enables ARM libraries are available for customers, so that soc in a short time can be developed. The soc with ARM Cortex-A57 processors, which take advantage of the 64bit ARMv8 architecture, should be in the next generation of smartphones and tablets used. In addition, it will chipontwerp also be used in servers. The current soc’s are still on 28nm produced.