Earlier today, Samsung announced that mass production has started for system-on-a-chip (SoC) products on their first-generation 10nm process, which is called Low Power Early (10LPE). Chips produced from this node will begin to ship in devices starting early 2017. The press release claims that, for integrated circuits manufactured under the 10LPE process, die area could decrease up to 30%, with either an increase in performance of up to 27% or a decrease in power of up to 40%.

This is a little higher than the 10% increase in performance that AnandTech claimed in April. On the plus side, it was also expected that any design that was created for 10LPE could be migrated, pretty much without change, to the second-generation, Low Power Plus (10LPP) node. Jumping back to today's press release, Samsung claims that 10LPP will begin mass production in the second half of next year. So basically, early 10nm parts will launch in a couple of months, then a second wave will arrive the year after, using a more refined fabrication method.