• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

[EETimes] TSMC starting 5 nm EUV Risk Production in April?

From the article:

"TSMC announced that it taped out a customer chip in an N7+ node that can use EUV on up to four layers. Its N5 that will use EUV on up to 14 layers will be ready for risk production in April. EUV aims to lower costs by reducing the number of masks required for leading-edge designs."
 
A13 2019 h2 on 7+ then? A14 2020 h2 on 5nm?
Amd x86 half a year later than Apple.
Tock tock tock tock. Relentlessly.
It's perfectly clear Intel business model is not working today. In no way can they compete with the rest of the world sharing process cost.
They need to change something radical now or they will be stuck on a half mature complex 10nm while the rest of the leader pack is on 5nm euv. It's not viable.
 
krumme said:
A13 2019 h2 on 7+ then? A14 2020 h2 on 5nm?
Amd x86 half a year later than Apple.
Tock tock tock tock. Relentlessly.
It's perfectly clear Intel business model is not working today. In no way can they compete with the rest of the world sharing process cost.
They need to change something radical now or they will be stuck on a half mature complex 10nm while the rest of the leader pack is on 5nm euv. It's not viable.
Click to expand...

I believe Intel is working on 7nm EUV process as we speak. That should catch them up if they can execute. Big IF these days.
 
DooKey said:
I believe Intel is working on 7nm EUV process as we speak. That should catch them up if they can execute. Big IF these days.
Click to expand...
Intel current profit at approx 20b a year gives plenty safety and funds for 10 and 7nm. But when 5nm arrives I think the size of investments even for Intel starts to become a serious problem for profit. 3nm funding could perhaps be unsustainable. Process cost is just exploding and always takes longer than anticipated.
 
krumme said:
Intel current profit at approx 20b a year gives plenty safety and funds for 10 and 7nm. But when 5nm arrives I think the size of investments even for Intel starts to become a serious problem for profit. 3nm funding could perhaps be unsustainable. Process cost is just exploding and always takes longer than anticipated.
Click to expand...

At that point I think Intel opens up their fabs to a multitude of others and garners some outside capital. They aren't the only ones looking at a huge bill to continue down the shrink path. The next several years are going to be fascinating.
 
And to think, all this capital infusion into foundries really started when Intel told Apple no, they weren't going to make a SOC for their iPhone project. ;-) If Intel had said yes, the landscape would look a lot different.
 
krumme said:
A13 2019 h2 on 7+ then? A14 2020 h2 on 5nm?
Amd x86 half a year later than Apple.
Tock tock tock tock. Relentlessly.
It's perfectly clear Intel business model is not working today. In no way can they compete with the rest of the world sharing process cost.
They need to change something radical now or they will be stuck on a half mature complex 10nm while the rest of the leader pack is on 5nm euv. It's not viable.
Click to expand...

Maybe also an A13X on N5 in 2020H1?
Apple seems all over the place in why and when they release X variants (presumably A11X was skipped and A12X will appear soon this month?).
But skipping the A13X in October next year and delaying it to 2020H1 so that it can be the early exploration of N5 seems to make sense, like A10X was first on 10nm. Also gives iPads an average cadence of 18 months or so rather than annual, which seems to kinda work.
 
"TSMC said that N5 will deliver 14.7% to 17.7% speed gains"

A rather strange number. Precisely imprecise estimate to 1 significant digit?
 
There are multiple ARM and other IP cores already implemented in pretty mature stage so very accurate results are already available. Although, these numbers might change in future re-spins (oriented for price and manufacturing economics).

Btw.: it is impressive that this huge area jump is still possible at "end of moores law". It is even bigger jump than what Intel plans at transition from 10 to 7.

BtwBtw.: I don't work for Apple but i have basically confirmed that Applle choosed DUV version instead of EUV. ...for this year Iphone. For EUV they will go directly at 5nm.
 
Dolan said:
BtwBtw.: I don't work for Apple but i have basically confirmed that Applle choosed DUV version instead of EUV. ...for this year Iphone.
Click to expand...

TSMC already kind of confirmed that when they said they weren't expecting any material revenue from 7+ this year. 7+ and 5 seem to be coming at the same time, which seems strange until you realize the bottleneck is EUV.
 
Too bad Intel's Core series of processors is just refreshed from Core 2 Duo which is refreshed from Pentium 4. AMD has left the old Bulldozer and Piledrivers behind and made a new line that wasn't just a refresh. Zen and Zen+ were the first blows, Zen 2(3000 series) and beyond will be the fall of Intel.
 
fluxdeity said:
Too bad Intel's Core series of processors is just refreshed from Core 2 Duo which is refreshed from Pentium 4
Click to expand...

This is not true.

Sandy Bridge (Core iX 2XXX) was a complete redesign, on a similar level to what Zen 2 is. Intel just didn't market it as such, and the performance gain over it's predecessors wasn't that dramatic, so only people who were watching closely noticed. Everything after SNB is incremental updates to the same base, without radical changes.

Before that, the Conroe (Core 2 Duo) was derived from the P6 base, that is, from Pentium 3 CPUs. Pentium 4 was a radical redesign that didn't work out well (much like AMD's Bulldozer), so Core 2 Duo was created from the base of it's predecessor instead.
 
I should add that I think the foundries making progress on EUV is what finally got Intel to more or less give up on trying to really fix 10 nm and get moving on their own EUV node. When you might actually see EUV from Intel remains to be seen.
 
jpiniero said:
I should add that I think the foundries making progress on EUV is what finally got Intel to more or less give up on trying to really fix 10 nm and get moving on their own EUV node. When you might actually see EUV from Intel remains to be seen.
Click to expand...
It seems to me that Intel 7nm was going to use EUV all along and is being developed by a separate team from the 10nm group: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13683/intel-euvenabled-7nm-process-tech-is-on-track

As far as backing off on 10nm development; with 7nm on schedule, it didn’t make any sense to further delay what would be a short lived 10nm node.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top