Moore's Law Continues into the 1x-nm Era

After much-publicised delays, Intel introduced their 14-nm second-generation trigate products in 2014. The following year TSMC and Samsung also launched their 16/14-nm finFET processes, notably in the Apple A9 and Exynos processors. In parallel NAND flash moved solidly into the 1x-nm generation and the first 3D V-NAND product went into volume production; and DRAM became a 2x-nm product. Chipworks, as a supplier of competitive intelligence to the semiconductor and electronics industries, monitors the evolution of chip processes as they come into commercial production. Chipworks has obtained parts from the leading edge manufacturers, and performed structural analyses to examine the features and manufacturing processes of the devices. We will examine some of the different structures we have seen during the evolution of these technologies, in particular the latest 14 and 20-nm logic parts that have been introduced. We will also look at several historical applications of implant technology that have been observed through reverse engineering.