Discussion Leading Edge Foundry Node advances (TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel) - [2020 - 2025]

DisEnchantment · Apr 24, 2020

TSMC's N7 EUV is now in its second year of production and N5 is contributing to revenue for TSMC this quarter. N3 is scheduled for 2022 and I believe they have a good chance to reach that target.

N7 performance is more or less understood.

This year and next year TSMC is mainly increasing capacity to meet demands.

TSMC Radically Boosts CapEx to Expand Production Capacities, To Reach $14B For 2019

www.anandtech.com

For Samsung the nodes are basically the same from 7LPP to 4 LPE, they just add incremental scaling boosters while the bulk of the tech is the same.

Samsung is already shipping 7LPP and will ship 6LPP in H2. Hopefully they fix any issues if at all.
They have two more intermediate nodes in between before going to 3GAE, most likely 5LPE will ship next year but for 4LPE it will probably be back to back with 3GAA since 3GAA is a parallel development with 7LPP enhancements.

Samsung’s Aggressive EUV Plans: 6nm Production in H2, 5nm & 4nm On Track

www.anandtech.com

Samsung's 3GAA will go for HVM in 2022 most likely, similar timeframe to TSMC's N3.
There are major differences in how the transistor will be fabricated due to the GAA but density for sure Samsung will be behind N3.
But there might be advantages for Samsung with regards to power and performance, so it may be better suited for some applications.
But for now we don't know how much of this is true and we can only rely on the marketing material.

This year there should be a lot more available wafers due to lack of demand from Smartphone vendors and increased capacity from TSMC and Samsung.
Lots of SoCs which dont need to be top end will be fabbed with N7 or 7LPP/6LPP instead of N5, so there will be lots of wafers around.

Most of the current 7nm designs are far from the advertized density from TSMC and Samsung. There is still potential for density increase compared to currently shipping products.
N5 is going to be the leading foundry node for the next couple of years.

For a lot of fabless companies out there, the processes and capacity available are quite good.

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FEEL FREE TO CREATE A NEW THREAD FOR 2025+ OUTLOOK, I WILL LINK IT HERE

dullard · Apr 9, 2025

Doug S said:
No he said he "threatened" them with a 100% tariff unless they increased their investments in the US, and is crediting that for their recent announcement of building more fabs in the US.

I'm not sure what you think the difference between these two are:
1) If you don't do X then I'll do Y
2) I threaten to do Y if you don't do X.

Yes, you are correct though that they could just slow walk it and then abandon later. Just like Foxconn did in Wisconsin only spending 6.72% of committed amounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconn_Valley_Science_and_Technology_Park

511 · Apr 9, 2025

maddie said:
3 years? I wonder if its understood the immensity of replicating an industrial ecosystem from scratch. Starting with "does the educational system even exist to produce the quantity of technically skilled staff needed to operate these companies?".

You make it sound like It's first time in the US that someone is going to manufacture 2nm Intel has been fabricating since IC creation they are running all the fabs it's TSMCs Problem to deal with Intel has been dealing with it.

maddie · Apr 9, 2025

511 said:
You make it sound like It's first time in the US that someone is going to manufacture 2nm Intel has been fabricating since IC creation they are running all the fabs it's TSMCs Problem to deal with Intel has been dealing with it.

OK, good luck.

eek2121 · Apr 10, 2025

maddie said:
3 years? I wonder if its understood the immensity of replicating an industrial ecosystem from scratch. Starting with "does the educational system even exist to produce the quantity of technically skilled staff needed to operate these companies?".

FWIW TSMC is already working on building out fabs in the U.S. Prices will likely cost a great deal more for chips made at these locations since labor laws are much more strict.

511 · Apr 10, 2025

Btw the cost of fab will go by 15-20% cause they tariffed Chip Making Tool

johnsonwax · Apr 10, 2025

eek2121 said:
FWIW TSMC is already working on building out fabs in the U.S. Prices will likely cost a great deal more for chips made at these locations since labor laws are much more strict.

Well, what the tariff will do is force TSMC to not split production. If Apple takes possession of their SOCs in Taiwan, then a tariff on TSMC doesn't apply unless Trump wants to start doing targeted tariffs on US companies, which is going to open up a whole other set of problems.

This is why the company my son works for, who makes control systems for the semiconductor industry is moving manufacturing to Vietnam from the US because it moves the bulk of their manufacturing outside of the tariff regime and limits only a fraction of their sales to US tariffs. Their equipment will ship mostly to Taiwan and SK, some to the US, all to the same customers who would rather pay tariff on 20% than 80% given reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on components that his company would have to pay.

Put another way, because of how utterly nonsensical this tariff effort is (because it's not trying to address an economic problem) in most of the case that I see for multinationals, the incentives are to move manufacturing out of the US, not into it, as my son's company is doing.

Labor laws or labor costs aren't a relevant factor in this part of the industry. Supply chains and capital costs are, though.

I will add that the completion of TSMCs US facilities is likely now uncertain given that they've got a 25% tariff on ASML to pay, 145% tariffs on steel and other materials as part of development of the facility, and so on. Their $100B or so investment is probably now discounted by at least 30%. And if Trump pulls the CHIPS act as he's threatening to do, that would likely be a wasted investment.

del42sa · Apr 11, 2025

https://wccftech.com/samsung-has-achieved-massive-progress-with-its-2nm-yield-rates/

it's currently around hefty 40% but could be much better soon...

511 · Apr 11, 2025

del42sa said:
https://wccftech.com/samsung-has-achieved-massive-progress-with-its-2nm-yield-rates/

it's currently around hefty 40% but could be much better soon...

A user on Twitter says this is PR and false and he is more reliable than the source 😂(anyways yield without die size is meaningless )

https://twitter.com/x/status/1910251387264635378

Doug S · Apr 11, 2025

johnsonwax said:
If Apple takes possession of their SOCs in Taiwan, then a tariff on TSMC doesn't apply

Are you sure about that? Any references?

Because that seems like a massive backdoor around tariffs. What stops Apple from taking official "possession" of iPhones in China so that when the planes carrying them land in the US they owe no tariff? Sure that wouldn't work for smaller companies that are just ordering stuff from China, but every large company directly manufacturing in China would do this.

I admit I'm far from an expert on all the ins and outs of tariffs, but I don't believe for a second that's how it works.

johnsonwax · Apr 11, 2025

Doug S said:
Are you sure about that? Any references?

Because that seems like a massive backdoor around tariffs. What stops Apple from taking official "possession" of iPhones in China so that when the planes carrying them land in the US they owe no tariff?

That's not what I said. Apple does take possession of the phones in China, and does pay tariffs in the US because Apple imported them and the tariff is on imports from China. The tariff isn't on 'anyone but Apple', it's on all imports from China, by anyone. The threat by Trump is a tariff focused specifically on TSMC. Not on AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm, but TSMC. Calling out tariffs specifically on US corporations is an escalation that Trump should want to avoid, but doesn't think that far ahead. He certainly doesn't know that there aren't boxes of TSMC branded stuff on the shelves which Tim Cook goes over and personally selects like groceries.

What I said is that Apple takes possession of the SOCs in Taiwan (because TSMC is making it for them, it's not some OTS purchase) and then moving them to China, where it would be subject to tariffs between Taiwan and China on components. Once it's in a phone, it's now a product of China, not of Taiwan, and subject to US tariffs against China (regardless of who possesses it - you could order it from Apple China and have to personally pay the tariff upon import.)

But that backdoor that you suggest does sorta exist. Apple could ship assembled iPhones to India, put them into boxes there and say they were made in India and subject to India tariffs and not China tariffs. The US regulates what 'Made in USA' means, but not what 'Made in India' means. This sort of thing happens constantly. They might get caught, they might not, this is why doing tariffs like this is stupid.

But if TSMC is making the SOC in Arizona and shipping wafers back to Taiwan for packaging, etc. (or the reverse) then it's subject to a specific call-out tariff on TSMC. That's why I said TSMC would seek to not split manufacturing, because the wafers are TSMCs (and therefore subject to the tariff only their goods) and not Apple's.

Generally what Trump implies he is trying to accomplish would probably be handled by an excise tax on TSMC manufactured components, not a tariff, which would be applied to every device sold that had such a component. Normally we don't do that on complex goods because of the difficulty of levying it in a reasonable way. On simple goods like gasoline, it's not hard. But on complex goods it gets a lot harder. Mind you, there's nothing about this which isn't stupid. I would not be shocked by a trade embargo just against TSMC components, not because such a thing would accomplish some stated economic goal (there is no stated economic goal), but because Trump would think that's somehow it's a win.

Doug S · Apr 12, 2025

I guess it is pointless even discussing what effect his tariff chaos will have in the future because it changes day by day. Now the tariffs are (apparently) off for smartphones and PCs, not just from China but everywhere (so Samsung is getting relief too)

But then the question becomes, what about PC components like SSDs or motherboards. And the answer is, nobody knows for sure, and even we you do know the status of that tomorrow for sure it could change on the whim of one cognitively impaired man a couple hours later. If Tim Cook said something critical of Trump or his policies the tariff could be back, or levied specifically on Apple products.

johnsonwax · Apr 12, 2025

Doug S said:
I guess it is pointless even discussing what effect his tariff chaos will have in the future because it changes day by day. Now the tariffs are (apparently) off for smartphones and PCs, not just from China but everywhere (so Samsung is getting relief too)

But then the question becomes, what about PC components like SSDs or motherboards. And the answer is, nobody knows for sure, and even we you do know the status of that tomorrow for sure it could change on the whim of one cognitively impaired man a couple hours later. If Tim Cook said something critical of Trump or his policies the tariff could be back, or levied specifically on Apple products.

Yep. Like I said, it's not trying to solve an economic goal. He's just looking for wins, and a win can be a 100% tariff with China or a free trade agreement with China. He doesn't care, and he'll definite what is a win on the fly. You can't plan around any of it, but you can avoid a lot of it by offshoring your production so you remain outside of most of the chaos.

Note, one thing that has been observed is that a lot of these 'policies' and the like are merely verbal. There is not a lot in writing. A lot of CBP actions are based on their interpretation of something they saw on Fox News. That's an important part of DOGE and the overall policy making philosophy - rules are regulations are what slow us down - but if we hire loyalists and trust them to get the vibes we're putting off, they'll make the implementation look like what we want without us having to define it. That's extremely common in strongman and corrupt governments. See the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It's all based on vibes, there's nothing that can be presented in court, that is by design.

I'm a retired public sector administrator. I've seen this before, just not remotely on this scale. So will SSDs be included? Depends in part on what some individual CBP employee decides, and in part on what importers decide is easiest for them. I've seen quite a few cases in the last week of people fighting to get tariff charges reversed from importers because they shouldn't have been levied, but the importer isn't interested in fighting the government - so they'll overcharge to get stuff to clear and just figure the buyer will trust that it should have been charged. Note, generally you declare your cargo when you leave port so that you are exempt from tariffs levied in transit, and that seems to be broadly ignored. Vibes.

johnsonwax · Apr 12, 2025

Just observed that the Trump administration, in their stated quest to get TSMC to move production to the US has lifted tariffs on Chinese lithography machines (which we are actively trying to prevent them from making) and not on Dutch ones that remain with a 25% tariff.

You'd think just by random chance they'd get half of this right, but no, the smartest toughest men in the room can't seem to get a single thing right. Also, China has put tungsten behind export license, so the US better bribe some company to start up tungsten production, but pretty sure they're completely unaware of the need.

techjunkie123 · Apr 14, 2025

NVIDIA to Manufacture American-Made AI Supercomputers in US for First Time

NVIDIA is working with its manufacturing partners to design and build factories that, for the first time, will produce NVIDIA AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S.

blogs.nvidia.com

Nvidia making Blackwell AI stuff in Arizona??

Is it going to be meme volume?

511 · Apr 14, 2025

techjunkie123 said:
NVIDIA to Manufacture American-Made AI Supercomputers in US for First Time

NVIDIA is working with its manufacturing partners to design and build factories that, for the first time, will produce NVIDIA AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S.

blogs.nvidia.com

Nvidia making Blackwell AI stuff in Arizona??

Is it going to be meme volume?

Ofc it is how much do you think 20K wafer can suffice between Apple/AMD/Nvidia considering Nvidia GPU is near reticle and you can make about 64 good dies at 0.1 D0.
It takes two dies to make 1 GPU so a wafer gets you 32 GB200/300.

Doug S · Apr 14, 2025

511 said:
Ofc it is how much do you think 20K wafer can suffice between Apple/AMD/Nvidia considering Nvidia GPU is near reticle and you can make about 64 good dies at 0.1 D0.
It takes two dies to make 1 GPU so a wafer gets you 32 GB200/300.

Apple will be using few TSMC US wafers, because TSMC isn't and won't be producing any leading edge stuff in the US. Nvidia has always used N+1 processes (probably in part because those reticle sized wafers mean you want very mature yields) so they're more able to use TSMC's US fabs.

johnsonwax · Apr 14, 2025

Doug S said:
Apple will be using few TSMC US wafers, because TSMC isn't and won't be producing any leading edge stuff in the US. Nvidia has always used N+1 processes (probably in part because those reticle sized wafers mean you want very mature yields) so they're more able to use TSMC's US fabs.

Apple could use it, though. They have plenty of components on older processes. C1 is 4nm and 7nm. Their flagship stuff, sure, that's going to stay in Taiwan, but Apple alone could likely eat the entire capacity of their current AZ fabs if they were so inclined.

Not that it would make a difference. Those components still need to leave the US to turn into products and would be hit with various tariffs in that process. This is the problem my son's company here in the US faces - they make components for the semiconductor industry - and are moving their manufacturing out of the US because everything outside the US is without tariffs so only if their customers are primarily inside the US (none are) being in the US is detrimental because they still face tariffs on their own components, potentially face reciprocal tariffs on export to their customers (who are themselves component suppliers), who would then face tariffs again upon import by the OEM. They aren't big enough to get a seat at the trade agreement table.

In a trade agreement (which we don't have) Apple could at least have the opportunity to reduce the amount of tariff paid on an imported iPhone if they can deduct the value of the C1 chip being made in the US but sent back to China or India or wherever. But that's unlikely to happen in the current environment.

oak8292 · Apr 14, 2025

Every few years this issue of manufacturing iPhones in the U.S. comes up. Each time there is an article written about how much value add is provided by China as assembler and now increasingly some parts. Back in 2010 the assembly value added by China was less than $10. The trade deficit was based on something around $300 per iPhone. A recent article which I can’t find right now has China’s value add at a little over $100 dollars per iPhone with assembly and cases, the import value for trade deficit is around $500. Our trade statistics are sledge hammers in a nuanced global supply chain landscape with semi probably the worst case.

This administration is well aware of this type of issue and my guess is that this is a way to raise revenue to balance the budget for tax cuts. China is a boogey man and raising ‘tariffs against’ an enemy with some pretense of bringing jobs back while using extraordinary presidential powers based on fighting fentanyl is how this administration wants to play it.

Apple sells the majority of their phones to International customers. China is tariffing based on where wafers are produced. If Apple continues manufacturing in Taiwan they won’t be subjected to tariffs in China. China may become their largest market.

Intel will also have product available for China until Panther Lake.

If iPhone sales don’t fall off a cliff they may generate a lot of revenue for tax cuts.

P.S. I got my 16e when they came out. Battery life is great.

johnsonwax · Apr 14, 2025

oak8292 said:
This administration is well aware of this type of issue and my guess is that this is a way to raise revenue to balance the budget for tax cuts. China is a boogey man and raising ‘tariffs against’ an enemy with some pretense of bringing jobs back while using extraordinary presidential powers based on fighting fentanyl is how this administration wants to play it.

The administration is objectively not aware of any of these issues, based on their own behavior.

Bringing American manufacturing back is contradictory to raising revenue to balance the budget. Note, in the first Trump admin, the feds raised $0 net dollars because all of the revenue raised had to be given back to soybean farmers to make up for their loss in sales. That was a transfer of wealth from consumers to farmers.

Not sure how destroying $6T in wealth in a week in order to raise $6T over 15 years is good policy. They could have taxed the wealth of investors to the tune of $6T (which is effectively what they did) and solved that problem in a week, and not caused millions of people to worry about their job. It only makes sense when you observe that the losses in this scenario will be borne by retirees and small business owners, while the tax cuts are primarily directed to the wealthy with 45% of the benefits going to people making $450K a year and up. This is a wholesale redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the rich. Despite all the talk of inflation and whatnot, the top 1% have seen wealth growth of more than 7% per year for the last half century (note, I'm close to this group and in most years have taxable income of about $40K per year and asset gains of at least $500K each of the last 4 years. I saw a portfolio drop of over half a million last week but don't need to realize that loss because I'm wealthy enough to pull from other sources of income. Retirees aren't so lucky. I won't really feel any of this pain.)

Tariffs are a regressive tax paid by consumers. Don't buy their arguments because they are contradictory to their actions. Evaluate their actions on their own merits and decide for yourself how a 25% tariff on lithography machines is going to help bring more semiconductor manufacturing to the US. Isn't it much more likely they have no idea what they're doing as evidenced by tariffs against uninhabited islands because they were too lazy to clean the trade data before doing this, and then were too incurious to wonder why an uninhabited island was on the list? These are the most powerful people on the planet with unrestricted access to the largest pool of expertise in the world, and they rolled out a presentation that looked like it was put together by a first year economics student.

There is no economic theory at work here.

511 · Apr 14, 2025

https://twitter.com/x/status/1911905838878388695

AMD Using N2

randomhero · Apr 16, 2025

I was quite floored when my country 's national tv station news reported about AMDs production of chips in TSMC US fabs. Tariffs and all... Like that has never happened.

511 · Apr 20, 2025

Intell 18A vs Intel 3 is a huge jump

source VLSI: https://www.vlsisymposium.org/wp-content/uploads/EN09_Technical-Tip-Sheet-VLSI-2025_EN_fin.pdf

RTX · Apr 20, 2025

https://twitter.com/x/status/1913823095837573191

i3 vs 18A and N3E vs N2

511 · Apr 20, 2025

RTX said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1913823095837573191
i3 vs 18A and N3E vs N2

You forgot to post the images 🤣

511 · Apr 20, 2025

Even more shocking

https://twitter.com/x/status/1913804031249494433

Discussion Leading Edge Foundry Node advances (TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel) - [2020 - 2025]

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