Samsung Begins Mass Producing 10 nm FinFET Technology Chips

Samsung announced on Monday that it has started mass producing 10-nanometer FinFET technology chips. According to the South Korean company, this would make it the only smartphone maker to do so.

“The industry’s first mass production of 10nm FinFET technology demonstrates our leadership in advanced process technology,” said Jong Shik Yoon, executive vice president at Samsung Electronics, in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to innovate scaling technologies and provide differentiated total solutions to our customers.”

Samsung reveals that the 10nm process technology will be used in an undisclosed device that will be launching early 2017. The smallest chip design used on the market right now are 14-nanometer chips, which are being used by Google’s new Pixel devices.

What makes a smaller chip more covetable is that a smaller design means more circuitry and more processing cores. Essentially, electrons have to travel a smaller distances so it saves time and energy. Keeping this in mind, Samsung’s 10 nm chip will consume 40 percent less power and have 27 percent greater performance than its predecessor.

The company elaborates:

“Samsung’s new 10nm FinFET process (10LPE) adopts an advanced 3D transistor structure with additional enhancements in both process technology and design enablement compared to its 14nm predecessor, allowing up to 30-percent increase in area efficiency with 27-percent higher performance or 40-percent lower power consumption. In order to overcome scaling limitations, cutting edge techniques such as triple-patterning to allow bi-directional routing are also used to retain design and routing flexibility from prior nodes.”

The company is already planning its second generation 10 nm process, which will have performance boost. It is slated to go into production during the second half of 2017.