What They Say
An article in Semiconductor Engineering points out that the driver for big investments by TSMC in fabs in Japan and China at the 28nm node of technology (introduced in 2008 and well behind the ‘state of the art’ for feature size) may be the demand for chips to support AR and VR applications. Apple is said to be planning on making OLED microdisplays using this level of CMOS while Sony is using it for image processing (CMOS image sensors or CIS). The article said that CIS devices are manufactured on 28nm to 80nm node technology.
Up to now, the demand for CIS devices has been driven by smartphones, but the use of cameras in AR & VR headsets will drive more demand.
The article discusses the details of testing needed for this kind of application and suggests growth of demand of up to 9% per year at this node, up from 6%
What We Think
In digging around this article, I found a good resource for information on the basics of CIS devices here although it has not been updated for a while.(BR)
