Generic finFET concept image (via wiki)
Hot on the heels of Intel’s early 2012 release of 22nm FinFET (Fin-based 3D Field-Effect Transistor) transistors, Samsung has announced the tape-out of their own 14nm FinFET test chips in collaboration with ARM, Mentor Graphics, Cadence and Synopsys. FinFET multi-gate transistors were developed as a result of the miniaturization of planar transistors. Over the decades as CPU circuitry decreased in size developers found that they could increasingly pack more and more transistors on a single silicon-based die. These planar transistors were also subjected to miniaturization, and as a result suffer from what’s known as the ‘short-channel effect’ or current leakage in the transistors ‘off state’. As a result the integrated circuit requires more power in its idle state making it overall inefficient. To combat the problem engineers set out to develop a multi-gate transistor that could suppress (or lessen) the off-state current leakage but maintains or increases overall circuit performance and thus FiNFETs were born. The FinFET transistor (depending on the design i.e.: Intel’s, AMD’s, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, etc.) employs a single conducting channel (wrapped by a thin silicon ‘fin’) that’s surrounded by several gates built on an SOI substrate. Essentially this forms conducting channels on three sides of the fin, which allows for more control over the transistors current. Samsung’s collaborative 14nm FinFET tape-out centers on ARM’s big.LITTLE (low-powered ‘background processor’ combined with the central CPU) designed Cortex-A7 IP to create a SoC for future mobile devices which will ultimately require less power (over todays devices) and provide an increase in performance to, what Samsung states, ‘deliver a PC like user experience on a mobile device’. When we may actually see mobile devices using the new FinFET technology is anyone’s guess. However, with this new development we’re at least one step closer to that reality.
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