Discussion Leading Edge Foundry Node advances (TSMC, Samsung Foundry, Intel)

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DisEnchantment

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2017
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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.

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 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.
 

FlameTail

Platinum Member
Dec 15, 2021
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The chip is an ARM chip.

No they aren’t going “full Apple”.

Microsoft Surface products have often contained ARM chips. The custom Microsoft ARM chip is said to focus primarily on AI performance, but won’t target the premium GPU/CPU segments (so, sounds like midrange).

We will see how things shape up as more details leak out.

AI seems like an obviously large bubble to me, and I am surprised so much money is being dumped into it.

(not that super advanced LLM auto completion engines don’t have use-cases, just not trillions of dollars of use cases)
If Micrososft makes their own chips for SURFACE, then that is effectively stabbing Qualcomm in the back, whome they had partnered with for WoA all these years.
 

FlameTail

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Dec 15, 2021
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By 2025Q4, what will be Intel's most advanced node available and shipment ready?

18A? 18A-P?

Asking because (see my latest comment on Qualcomm thread).
 

SiliconFly

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2023
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Looks like Intel may rtm its 1.4nm high-na euv node in 2026, with products out in 2027.

Edit: Tweak Town article says 1.4nm will be in production in 2026.
 
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SiliconFly

Golden Member
Mar 10, 2023
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Intel has Microsoft as a customer they need nvidia now and they.ll be the 2rd biggest founry in the world after tsmc 😁
I don't think the big 4 (Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm) are going to sign up with intel foundry anytime now for their high volume offerings. It's too soon cos' intel foundry's ecosystem is still nascent. I think it's gonna a long time for Intel to get to no. 2 position. They need to start with smaller players first.
 

DavidC1

Senior member
Dec 29, 2023
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By 2025Q4, what will be Intel's most advanced node available and shipment ready?

18A? 18A-P?

Asking because (see my latest comment on Qualcomm thread).
18A, because it'll be Clearwater Forest and that's the lead vehicle, meaning first product on the process. Since P sounds like a year later, if the lead vehicle is sometime in 2025, there's no way you'll see a P in the same year.
 

FlameTail

Platinum Member
Dec 15, 2021
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18A, because it'll be Clearwater Forest and that's the lead vehicle, meaning first product on the process. Since P sounds like a year later, if the lead vehicle is sometime in 2025, there's no way you'll see a P in the same year.
Clearwater Forest comes in 2025?
 

DavidC1

Senior member
Dec 29, 2023
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Clearwater Forest comes in 2025?
Yes.
Most companies give a little more clear guidance in terms of how much in an expected time frame but since Intel's foundry business doesn't seem to have much going until 18a, they are basically getting you to ignore that the next 1 - 2 years of foundry business will be small.
IFS can't have any meaningful business until 18A, when they claim process leadership.

When most people talk about technical advantages, they only talk about the transistors and process. The technical advantages should include all of the following:
-Transistor performance
-Variety of processes(High Voltage, Low Power, I/O)
-Ease of use
-Availability of Libraries and Tools

TSMC also has other advantages besides that. Such as being a reliable, well known foundry for many years, while Intel is just starting and went through many, many ups and downs sometimes entirely due to change of few top men(like the CEO).

There are likely many other small details such as the desire to keep relations(human) between partners. For example, Daughter of Firestone married Son of Ford as part of an alliance. How can 10-20% difference in technical specs compete with THAT?!

Intel wanted Tower because lot of products are ok with keeping on much less fine nodes, and Intel has no foundry experience there. So quite new but not bleeding edge like Intel 3 is a problem. If you are going to go through the risk of using a new foundry with all it's quirks, different from TSMC's, you'd go for something where they have an advantage.

So in 2025, that's 18A. In 2026-2027 it'd be 14A. Until they get clout numbers using IFS will be small.
 
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DavidC1

Senior member
Dec 29, 2023
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Lifetime deal silliness illustrated:

Average Joe: My lifetime salary is $2.5 million($40K x 50+ years).

It only sounds good.

I haven't looked at their previous numbers, but say pre-MS number is 10 billion, and now is 15, assuming 8 years for revenue, you can average out revenue gains per quarter from MS deal at $150 million, or $600 per year, which isn't small, but not enough to make up for any big bread and butter business losses at Intel.

They'll probably be able to claim 50% revenue gains for IFS from 300 mil to 450 mil.
 

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
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Ding ding ding now get Intel to admit that.
Do you have one piece of information from Intel stating that Intel 7 is not their old Intel 10nm Enhanced SuperFin? Or are you that afraid of the concept of 5 nodes that you must make up fake claims?

Here are the slides when Intel announced the new node names. See slide #10 where it says Intel 7 was renamed from their old Enhanced SuperFin name. https://download.intel.com/newsroom/2021/client-computing/Intel-Accelerated-2021-presentation.pdf In other words Intel did "admit that" they renamed nodes.
 
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FlameTail

Platinum Member
Dec 15, 2021
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Can external customer use 14A?

With Intel 4 and Intel 20A, external customers were not allowed those nodes, instead Intel allowed external customers to get their refined versions: Intel 3 and Intel 18A respectively.
 
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