Samsung Electronics Foundry Business Department has set up a plan to go straight to 6-nano process based on 7-nano process. This is its strategy to counterattack Taiwan's TSMC as it took a supply of 7-nano chips from major customers such as Qualcomm and others that are consigned.

Samsung Electronics has lost Qualcomm's 7-nanometer (nm) chip order to Taiwan-based Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

GlobalFoundries, the world's second largest contract chipmaker, aims to double its revenue from Japan over the next few years by launching cheaper chips for newer uses that will help it claw market share from a dominant Taiwanese rival, a senior executive said.

Samsung Electronics' plan to spin off foundry operations from the system LSI division is expected to increase Samsung's share of global contract chipmaking at the expense of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and smaller rivals.

Today brings a report from Credit Suisse's John Pitzer, who maintains a Neutral rating on Intel shares, and a $35 price target. He concedes Intel has shown it maintains its manufacturing lead. He's just not sure it will be enough to give the company the edge it needs.

Intel says that when its long-delayed 10-nanometer Cannon Lake chips finally arrive, they'll be a "full generation ahead" of rivals Samsung and TMSC, thanks to "hyper scaling" that squeezes in twice as many transistors.

Samsung appears to be about a quarter ahead of TSMC with the ramp of 10nm process technology, according to a veteran chip analyst.

TSMC reports 76% yields on 256Mbit SRAM modules manufactured on 7nm.

Trying to cover the waterfront, TSMC disclosed plans for new high-, mid- and low-end processes at an annual event here. They included an enhanced 7nm FinFET node using extreme ultraviolet lithography, a 12nm upgrade of its 16nm process and a 22nm planar technology - its answer to fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI).

Samsung is going to make supplemental investments into its 10nm production lines in March 2017 and construct new 7nm semiconductor facilities in 2018. Its strategy is to secure ultra-fine processing technologies faster than its competitors.

One of a handful of startups aiming to attack Broadcom's dominance in Ethernet switching emerges from stealth mode this week. Nephos spun out of Taiwan's Mediatek and will push packaging technology from TSMC to a new level.

Intel split the Cyclone 10 into the performance-oriented GX and low-power optimized LP series. The GX series uses TSMC's 20nm process and is geared for a number of uses in the industrial, automotive, and broadcast markets. These include machine vision, robotics, infotainment, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, and audiovisual applications.

TSMC's paper described a test chip that could pass for a commercial part and said it had "healthy" yields. Samsung described its use of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to repair what was clearly a research device, suggesting what it will call 7nm could still be years away.

TSMC is expected to undergo risk production of 7nm chipsets this year, and mass production next year, while Samsung now also cites an aggressive roadmap for "early 2018," meaning that the Galaxy S9 will most likely flaunt a 7nm processor.

After being the first to reach 22nm then subsequently 14nm FinFET, Intel's chip development pace has slowed considerably for the move to 10nm with many losing confidence in Intel's ability to maintain a chip manufacturing advantage over competitors such as TSMC, Samsung, and Globalfoundries.

Intel aims to gain the upper hand in the budding field of artificial intelligence with a new lineup of chip products in 2017, a senior executive said.

Analysts with BlueFin Research Partners say that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will begin manufacturing Apple's A11 processor in late April.

The competing R&D alliance of Globalfoundries, Samsung Electronics and IBM announced a 7nm process technology, but it is taking a different approach. TSMC is using the current 193nm immersion lithography tools while the alliance's process relies on a new form of lithography, known as EUV or extreme ultra-violet, to pattern some critical layers.

As Linley Gwennap, the head of the eponymous research firm Linley Group, sees it, the "16nm" technology of TSMC and the others "is really 19nm," and the planned 7nm "will be about 13nm relative to Intel processes." Intel, he concludes, is a "a full node" ahead of the foundries, "Just as they have been for the past decade."

If you ask Anthony Yen, who leads EUV lithography development at TSMC, how critical EUV is to Moore's Law, he won't beat around the bush: "Totally critical. 100 percent critical. Very, very critical." TSMC expects to adopt EUV in 2020, when the company aims to begin producing chips on its 5-nm manufacturing line.

Advances in semiconductor technology will be on display at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). Samsung and TSMC will describe 7nm SRAMs, Mediatek will show a 10nm SoC and STMicroelectronics will unveil a neural network accelerator made in a fully depleted silicon-on-insulator process.

Citigroup chip analysts Roland Shu and Christopher Danely conclude TSMC is a year ahead of Intel in foundry technique, even though Intel overall makes better transistors.

TSMC will be ready to take orders for products on the 7nm node by as early as April 2017. This is, of course, a pretty significant announcement because it lets us know the approximate time by which we can expect GPUs and CPUs on the same node.

It is Apple, not AMD, that threatens Intel's hegemony

Intel's recent pledge to expand its business making chips for others highlights its ambition to snatch chip orders for Apple's popular iPhones from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. as early as 2018, industry experts said.

TSMC now has all of Apple?？ foundry business but is seen behind Intel on the more advanced 10nm processors.

Korean newspaper Chosun Biz reported that Samsung had picked up a contract from Nvidia to manufacture Pascal GPUs. The manufacturing is set to begin before the end of 2016, and will use Samsung's patented 14-nanometer technology.

Nvidia may be going directly to 7-nanometer manufacturing technology for its post-Volta graphics processor family.

Given Apple's focus on pushing the performance of its silicon, and TSMC's packaging advancements, it makes sense that TSMC has been able to gain sole possession of Apple's chip orders for at least this generation.

It won't be just Apple that might be interested in making a counter-offer. Google, whose Android smartphones are based on ARM, Samsung and TSMC could all benefit from an acquisition of the UK firm.

After a strong 2H16, TSMC's growth could slow in 2017 (JPMe 4% sales growth), due to already 100% share in iPhone 7 and lack of further customer traction at 10nm, said JP Morgan analyst Gokul Hariharan.

TSMC said that some media outlets in Taiwan had misunderstood reports from mainland Chinese sources that the firm was building a research and development plant in Nanjing.

Samsung agreed with Dutch-based ASML to deploy extreme ultraviolet (EUV) equipment for mass production in their 7 nanometer processes.

As of 0135 GMT, the main TAIEX index gained as much as 0.9% to 8,753.46 points, its highest level since March 31.

Analyst Steve Mullane of BlueFin Research Partners said that TSMC is "planning to double the production starts" of Intel's XMM 7360 LTE modem in the current quarter. The analyst says that this "correlates with the timing of the Apple A10 processor production ramp in preparation for the iPhone 7 launch in September.