ARM and TSMC team up to develop a 7 nm chip

The first 7 nm chip came out last summer, and the company behind it was IBM. However, there is still enough time left until the processors built using this technology become available to the masses. Intel, for example, expects to have the first 7 nm processors available in more than 3 years from now. ARM and TSMC, on the other hand, are teaming up to deliver the first such chip to consumers worldwide.

ARM and TSMC worked together in the past and, according to the official press release, their latest agreements builds on the two companies' "success with previous generations of 16nm FinFET and 10nm FinFET process technology." The more recent benefits delivered to customers by the joint efforts of ARM and TSMC include early access to Artisan Physical IP and tape-outs of ARM Cortex-A72 on 16 nm and 10 nm FinFET.

According to Dr. Cliff Hou, vice president of R&D for TSMC, "Customers designing their next generation high-performance computing SoCs will benefit from TSMC’s industry-leading 7nm FinFET, which will deliver more performance improvement at the same power or lower power at the same performance as compared to our 10nm FinFET process node." 

While there is no ETA available yet, IBM will not be able to mass produce 7 nm chips before 2018-2019, so ARM and TSMC should have at least two years at their disposal to come out first.