Intel's timeline originally
had 10nm chips going into volume production in the 2H 2015, which would have absolutely crushed any competition had it come to fruition. However, the company postponed the volume launch until 2H 2017, likely because there was more profit left in 14nm to be milked. But nothing happened in 2017, and Intel said it would begin volume production in 2018 instead. Finally, last week, Intel announced that volume production of 10nm would be delayed for the third time and that 10nm products would begin volume production sometime in 2019 (there was no specific time frame given).
What's going on here? So far, it looks like Intel has underestimated the complexity of manufacturing on 10nm and can't get yields to a rate sufficient for volume production. While Intel struggles to iron out its 10nm process, Taiwan Semiconductor (
TSM), Samsung (
OTC:SSNLF), and AMD-partner GlobalFoundries have been making rapid progress on 7nm processes. TSMC
announced last week that it had begun production of chips on the 7nm process node, Samsung isn't
far behind that,
and GlobalFoundries is set to sample 7nm in mid-2018 and begin volume production soon after.