Samsung recently announced mass production of its first 14nm mobile application processor, a new version of its Exynos 7 Octa chip widely expected to be in the successor to it's flagship Galaxy S5 phone.
The 14nm node adds FinFETs – 3D transistors – which are generally used to reduce leakage and improve the performance of the chips. By successfully incorporating three-dimensional (3D) FinFET structure on transistors, Samsung has overcome performance and scaling limitations of the planar structure used in previous 20nm and older processes and gained a significant competitive edge in advanced semiconductors for the mobile industry.
Samsung is not claiming that its 14 or 16nm process provides the full shrink that you would normally expect in moving from one process node to the next, but that the new process "enables up to 20 percent faster speed, 35 percent less power consumption, and 30 percent productivity gain" compared with its 20nm process.
Samsung said it has been working on FinFET technology since the early 2000s, pointing to a research paper it presented at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in 2003.
The Exynos 7 Octa will compete with Apple's A8 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 in the high-end phones at the beginning of the year, both of which are 20nm processors. The A8 is used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and LG's G Flex 2 was the first phone announced with the 810.
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