TSMC finalizes 28nm process, smartphones and graphics cards about to get faster and last longer

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), responsible for producing semiconductors for companies such as AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and possibly Apple, announced it’s ready to shrink the die and mass produce high performance, power-sipping 28nm silicon. Nvidia pledged its support for the new process for future graphics cards, which is good news considering the rumors of disputes between TSMC and the graphics powerhouse — the reason that Nvidia’s Kepler family still hasn’t arrived is thought to be due to the semiconductor company not meeting its original release date for 28nm. AMD’s next gen Southern Islands GPUs will also swing towards 28nm, though the company was believed to have been similarly burned when its latest line of graphics processors had to be built on the 40nm process since TSMC’s 32nm plans never came through. Qualcomm also took the stage to talk about its upcoming Snapdragon S4 for smartphones and tablets, which was built on TSMC’s 28nm technology. Faster processors sound good, but here’s hoping for faster results this time around.