High Performance Mobile SoC Productization with Second-Generation 10-nm FinFET Technology and Extension to 8-nm Scaling

We report on Snapdragon™ SDM845 mobile SoC in mass production with a second-generation 10-nm finFET technology. SDM845 exhibits 30–40% CPU/GPU performance gain over SDM835 (first-generation 10-nm finFET process) together with ~10% battery life increase driven by new design features and technology improvements in both transistor performance and uniformity, enabling high performance and low power solution for both mobile and computing/AI applications. Extending the technology scaling further, ~15% logic circuit area scaling over 10 nm has been realized in an 8-nm node with gate and BEOL pitch scaling enabled by quadruple patterning (LE^4). Yield equivalence to 10 nm has been demonstrated in 8-nm IP chips.