A peek at Intel's future foundry tech
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
Still pretty amazing that there's basically one global top-tier chip supply chain, with hundreds of companies, some of which are sole-source at the scale of 6-12mo+. ASML is as much a bottleneck as TSMC.
A bigger one, since all of TSMC, Samsung, and Intel rely on ASML. It could be many years, if not decades, before ASML gets some serious competition.
Yes, this is _one_ of the reasons I think TSMC is fairly safe from doomsday theories like China trying to cut it off from the world. Because that would risk it being cut of from ASML, and they are unlikely to be anywhere close to making their own machines before grinding to a halt.
Short term, it's mutually assured fabrication destruction; Long term, the world needs more redundancy and competition in both areas.
But... arent they already cut from ASML?
US disallowed ASML to sell advanced tech to China
Edited to specify China as the one who would potentially cut off TSMC from the rest of the world, which would also cut off ASML->TSMC.
But the majority of chips they need can be built on this process if they have it. They don't need ASML if they got here. And they can't have ASML's new stuff.
Doesn't sound like much of a deterrent.
FWIW, that's about where Intel was 14-15 years ago. That's a reasonable process for lots of logic chips, but not for modern mobile devices or datacenter machine learning engines.
ASML is only relevant to them if they need to get to present day GPUs and mobile devices (as you said) and I don't think that's that important for their needs. But even if it is relevant they have no access to ASML tech because ASML only has that because the basic research is US-owned and the USG will enforce their export controls on ASML and will enforce that critical components are made here so playing nice with Taiwan won't get China any closer to EUV lithography.
What /u/tomxor is saying makes no sense.
TSMC under peacetime conditions has issues obtaining acceptable yields on this equipment. In an armed conflict, there will be no operation at all, much less one that requires a Stuxnet-style attack to shut down.
additionally, I take it as evidence of the perceived value that people gone to great lengths to avoid widespread proliferation of this techniques because scarcity is a value amplifier. so by keeping it scarce its value increases.
so if I'm correct, if/when there are multiple comparable fabs in multiple parts of the world the geopolitical risks should go down in taiwan
finally, having typed it out, I feel my whole argument is wrong...
Taiwan has been a subject to threat of invasion for a long time before TSMC was a thing.
A short while ago Intel had the best fabs and CPU chips. Nobody thought another country invading USA was plausible.
> so if I'm correct, if/when there are multiple comparable fabs in multiple parts of the world the geopolitical risks should go down in taiwan
No. Taiwan has for decades been a point of geopolitical tension between powers around in Pacific (which currently is US and China). The existence of TSMC makes the rest of the world care more (or scared more), but the PRC isn't just going to give up its decades long goal of taking over Taiwan because there's another TSMC somewhere else (or even in mainland China).
My guess is that US, China, and Taiwan will all have essentially equivalent fabs, Korea and the EU will have what look like cheaper versions until everyone figures out that they don't have the yields the promise and so it's actually more expensive but propped up by .gov money (even more than the first group).
I wouldn't be surprised to see another one shared by Brazil, India, South Africa (and maybe Russia) that kind of works, enough for low volume defense projects.
Unless they massively screw up with the hand they have been dealt, it's very likely that this will be a serious competitor moving forward.
[1] https://asiantechpress.com/ked-global-us-forcing-tsmc-samsun...
Im excited and cant wait to see next 3 years
It is not that I dont believe in AMD, I just believe that their growth potential is lower than INTCs.
Foundry businsss is crazy and has waaay higher entry level
They were pretty open about this on some earning calls and how do I see it?
I see it as room for improvement and maybe some kind of potential edge over duos like amd+tsmc
TSMC aren't standing still, they obviously aren't stupid and they have shitloads of money. Intel probably scores zero on those 3 points.
Some claim tsmc is decade ahead, other say it is 3 to 5 years, etc, etc.
From my understanding both are in a race that will be decided in next 10-14 months and when it comes to the future, Intel has priority on next gen EUV (HighNA), so there is a chance
Various medias report that Intel has 1-2 year advantage due on tech like PowerVia
So, it is not that clear how far ahead TSMC is
_____
>TSMC isnt stupid
Yes, they arent, so arent their customers who want geo diversified supply chain and risk amortization (Earthquake? War? Drought?)
Also they will have leverage when negotiating deals with TSMC
https://www.semianalysis.com/p/asml-dilemma-high-na-euv-is-w...
Except Intel hasn't talked about price at all...they have a completely different cost structure that isn't competitive at all. Think about AMD gross margin vs. Intel's gross margin. AMD has similar...all while giving TSMC 50%+ gross margin also. Now tell me Intel's cost will be similar to TSMC...
Intel GM ~46% AMD GM ~46% TSMC GM ~53%
It wasn't that long ago that Intel was dominating and it looked like nobody would ever dislodge them. Once the top management that drove a company to success retire, they are almost guaranteed to be replaced by people whose main skill set was political navigating in a large bureaucracy and then the decline begins.
I think it's a plausible conservative prediction that Intel will close the gap somewhat and will have a significant (but not dominant) slice of the pie.
Even with all dividends included their stock is worth about as much as back in 2000 (which they only managed to surpass in 2019/2020)), and if they are excluded they are yet to surpass their dot.com peak...
All signs point to No. They have the talent to have competing tech...but they have shown time and time again that they can't do high volume manufacturing or do it at a price that also allows their customers to have high gross margins (like AMD, NVIDIA, etc).
What do you mean with that?
Example(s): https://www.theverge.com/22597713/intel-7nm-delay-summer-202... https://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-sorry-but-our-7nm-chips-wil... https://www.eenewseurope.com/en/poor-yield-at-intel-delays-s...
Comparing Intel to other fabs, it's uglier, sure. The Krzanich years were characterized by over-promising and under-delivering, and Intel isn't far enough removed from that period for trust to be rebuilt. That said, they have shrunk the process gap over the last couple years, even if the gap isn't entirely closed.
Given the firehose of government money being directed at domestic manufacturing right now, I assume Intel is doing fine on the "shitloads of money" front.
I don't think Intel is a favorite to be the world's process leader by 2025, but it's reasonable to think they could get close. I don't think the doom-and-gloom perspective is well-founded at all.
Microsoft Will Use Intel to Manufacture Home-Grown Processor
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-21/microsoft...
Who said anything about TSMC?
That's... the design. You have a boost clock and a sustained clock spec, and the latter is what you're guaranteed to get "under load". Usually it will do better with most parts and cooling solutions (note that the motherboard regulator hardware matters too!), but the load performance will always be "throttled".
Basically you've just misunderstood. This isn't the 90's and clocks aren't fixed things. It's impossible to treat your criticism without numbers.
Tech Ingredients has some detailed discussion in the linked video ~28:20 regarding surface preparation and paste application. (Lasers not CPUs, but the principles are the same.)
As others have stated, modern Intel and AMD chips essentially boost as hard as the cooling solution will allow to eek out that last few % of performance.
Heck, even my 420mm AIO was struggling with the newer processors before undervolting. With AMDs latest series I have started using eco mode. An undervolted 7900x at 88w ("105w TDP") is at 95% of stock performance and doesn't make a sound with a decent air cooler if you are comfortable with it staying at 85 degrees C when doing work.
The single thread performance is the same, and I managed to have a stable boost of 5.8ghz for single core workloads. It compiles code good enough for me, and the occasional Minecraft session is a breeze.
TSMC and Samsung can’t meet the demand of those companies.
If Intel can be TSMC’s customer then surely AMD can be Intel’s customer, so is Apple. Intel’s foundry business is structured to be separated from its processor business
The assumption is that there is going to be a lot more demand. Even after cutting China out which is like 1/3 of global demand. The assumption is that will be driven by AI, mostly in data centers.
Could be. Otherwise Intel foundry services will face an uphill battle vs. TSMC.
TSMC’s revenue is like 70 times of Intel’s foundry business. Intel only plans to leapfrog Samsung by the end of this decade. What Intel aim to lead is the process. They plan to introduce 18A by the end of this year, followed by 14A.
China will not be cut off from the global market, only at the very high end. Nvidia just recently showcase their latest chips to Chinese market. They will continue to be a main driving force along with the US.
They will if the alternative is that they lose customers. It’s not like they have a lot of options. Also they can use Intel for less advanced chips.
Intel knows full well that their chip competitors will be skeptical. That’s why they announced today that the company will be split into 2 distinct groups - Foundry and Product.
Microsoft and ARM join Intel on stage at their foundry event. The chips they have Intel to make are definitely competitors to Intel’s x86 and GPU businesses. That’s what AMD will do unless they get all they want from TSMC or Samsung.
For Intel to succeed as a foundry it needs customers that target the same "high end, power hungry" market segment. I don't see how Qualcomm (low power) fits that niche. More likely big AI accelerators (like, perhaps, Microsoft is planning).
As long as Intel depends on its high end processors for most of its profits, it will be difficult to develop a low power process for other, less profitable, customers.
There's no nearly-conceivable future where the minimum costs to design a 28nm or below chip are tractable for most small companies, but even most capable individuals can design something on 130nm and afford to have that taped out today.
My bet is that TSMC will go down and the talent will either go to the mainland or the US.
Source?
Some sources: Harvards economic complexity US export of computers in 2021: https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=undefined&quer...
Chips Over Oil "Fact checked": https://www.techopedia.com/chinas-strategic-pivot-in-the-glo....
Just check average .... X....
I'm not sure if China, in decline, is worth mentioning. Eg. Average wage, GDP, ...
The west is not the US alone...
I regard US + EU + Canada + Aus + Japan + South Korea as the west about 1 billion people.
I'm probably missing some here, and there are almost certainly some unannounced customers.
But Intel pretty much bet everything AI on Falcon Shores (2025). If its crumby or late, I think it will be difficult for them to catch up. They'll have inference hardware in laptops, sure, but still...
Also see https://fuse.wikichip.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/hp-dens...