Aug 10 2015
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China's largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry and one of the world's largest foundries, today announced its 28nm process technology that is used for manufacturing Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 410 processors, has been successfully adopted into mainstream smartphones.
Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm Incorporated, and Dr. Zixue Zhou, Chairman of SMIC, make a phone call using a Chinese brand Smartphone powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that has been manufactured from SMIC's 28nm process.
This marks a significant step in the commercial usage of 28nm core chips, and a new era of advanced mobile phone chip manufacturing in China. This is another major breakthrough in the company's collaboration on 28nm, following SMIC's announcement of successfully fabricating Qualcomm Technologies' processors at the end of last year.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processors, with integrated 4G LTE, offer an abundant feature set for high-volume smartphones. Compared with 40nm technologies, processors manufactured on 28nm process technology have twice the logic density, are 20 to 30 percent faster, and consume 30 to 50 percent less power.
Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of SMIC said: "The first batch that used SMIC's 28nm node performed well, achieving recognition from Qualcomm Technologies and mobile phone manufacturers. This is an important moment for the industry's entire ecosystem, because for the first time, China's mainland manufacturers can now introduce mainstream smartphones which is a result of the close collaboration between SMIC and Qualcomm Technologies. This marks the start of a new era of 28nm advanced mobile phone chip manufacturing in China. In the future, with the development of 28nm technologies, we are looking forward to providing more advanced processing and extensive technical support to Qualcomm Technologies and other global customers."
Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm Incorporated said: "The Snapdragon 410 processor, manufactured using SMIC 28nm process technology, is a leading chipset designed for the latest generation of high-volume smartphones and tablets. Achieving commercial usage in mainstream smartphones with these chipsets demonstrates the significant progress made by Qualcomm Technologies and SMIC in our advanced process node and wafer fabrication cooperation."