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

[DisEnchantment]

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.

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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.

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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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[511]

Intel's faults are Intel's, not their ISA if that's what you are implying. Their StrongARM division was executing badly.

If x86 was open and not artificially protected by corrupt lawyers that couldn't see beyond money, then Intel(and AMD) would have real competition. I bet you Apple would make a comparably efficient SoC.

If Intel had brain they wouldn't have lost their lead

 

[poke01]

Intel's faults are Intel's, not their ISA if that's what you are implying. Their StrongARM division was executing badly.

If x86 was open and not artificially protected by corrupt lawyers that couldn't see beyond money, then Intel(and AMD) would have real competition. I bet you Apple would make a comparably efficient SoC.

That reminds of this article, still relevant today I suppose.

Start-up plans new energy-efficient processor

Industry vets join up at P.A. Semi to develop chips that will consume less watts and adapt to wide variety of devices.

www.cnet.com

If only Intel realised that low power but high performance CPUs designs were the future.
To this day Intel hasn’t created a low power but high performance CPUs architecture be it the P core or the Atom/mont core.

 

[poke01]

That reminds of this article, still relevant today I suppose.

Start-up plans new energy-efficient processor

Industry vets join up at P.A. Semi to develop chips that will consume less watts and adapt to wide variety of devices.

www.cnet.com

If only Intel realised that low power but high performance CPUs designs were the future.
To this day Intel hasn’t created a low power but high performance CPUs architecture be it the P core or the Atom/mont core.

Prior to stating P.A Semi, Dan Dobberpuhl created StormARM too.

So Apple switched to Intel because IBM wasn’t able to create a CPU that could fit a laptop and not burn. But these P.A Semi folks did, and Apple switched the Mac to Intel by then and P.A Semis missed out.

The biggest mistake Intel ever did was to reject StrongARM CPUs for the iPhone, cause if they didn’t Apple would not have brought P.A Semi.

 

[511]

It should force Intel to build Ohio and use 14A for their products if gov. is pumping them make sure to disable stock buy back and dividend program for few years 🤣 🤣

 

[511]

any idea how true this is?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1956328473305211018

 

[marees]

any idea how true this is?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1956328473305211018

It is a seed capital that has grown to this amount

(The start-up was boosted by govt. But now the company is mature & govt stake is minority)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1956395683063464222

 

[511]

It is a seed capital that has grown to this amount

(The start-up was boosted by govt. But now the company is mature & govt stake is minority)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1956395683063464222

he clearly mentions subsidies including Tax brake and other benefits but what the tweet says also makes sense

 

[Josh128]

Trump saying 200%-300% tariffs coming on semiconductors in the next two weeks. He's either lying through his teeth or smoking crack, I have to say.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-says-semiconductor-tariffs-coming-soon-could-reach-300-200619487.html

 

[marees]

he clearly mentions subsidies including Tax brake and other benefits but what the tweet says also makes sense

Also they 'encouraged' private investment in TSMC

https://twitter.com/x/status/1956128337501302860

 

[marees]

C

he clearly mentions subsidies including Tax brake and other benefits but what the tweet says also makes sense

Check this article from an year ago

Government Chip Funding Spreads Globally

Nations vie for a piece of the semiconductor pie with offers of cash, subsidies, tax breaks, and other approaches.

semiengineering.com

 

[511]

Thanks I got more confused lol

 

[LightningZ71]

This all happened in the last few decades in the aviation industry. The EU and the US went full bore into a major back and forth litigation cycle over the various types of money flowing in and out of Airbus Industries and Boeing. The EU was claiming that many of the pork filled contracts that were handed to Boeing for the USAF amounted to direct federal subsidies in addition to state tax breaks and subsidies that were paid to Boeing to encourage them to do things like build factories in South Carolina and move their headquarters to Chicago. Airbus also got a ton of "questionable" government contracts for all sorts of dead end research and development projects, direct financial assistance for expanding production facilities, essentially no-bid contracts for vastly over priced commercial conversion projects when substantially less expensive alternatives existed on the market, etc.

The same kind of sh*tstorm is coming for semiconductor support by governments. The only way that it doesn't? Nationalizing a portion of the companies and production facilities for product. Even then, it's still likely to get ugly.

 

[511]

I would say Semiconductors is the next oil.

 

[NTMBK]

I would say Semiconductors is the next oil.

... we're going to invade Iraq for semiconductors?

 

[adamge]

A container ship full of semiconductors is going to pollute an Alaskan beach?

 

[ashFTW]

... we're going to invade Iraq for semiconductors?

No, for sand!! 🤣

 

[johnsonwax]

Thanks for weighing in. There’s a handful of Xitter people I follow who happen to be bagholders of Intel stock and they’ve been praying for a split of IFS and the design side, mainly because they believe a split will unlock value on the design side and allow them to recover their paper losses. I never really understood how that could work since it was my belief that their shares of the foundry side would offset any gains from the design side.

Yeah, that's possibly true, though given the layoffs on the design side it's not a given. The market is a weighing not measuring machine. The design side gets unshackled from all manner of things like the rate at which you can contract physical plant that allow a design focused company to see higher PEs. It doesn't always make sense.

 

[johnsonwax]

It is a seed capital that has grown to this amount

(The start-up was boosted by govt. But now the company is mature & govt stake is minority)

There are a lot of other things government can do to help - taxation, regulation, visas for foreign talent, shaping the market so that competition doesn't become destructive, etc. TSMC doesn't need cash any longer, but the government can solve loads of other problems.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@LightningZ71

Yay can't wait for Intel to become the next Boeing.

 

[mikegg]

US is still capitalist?

1. Ban China from using TSMC

2. Invest a stake in Intel

3. Put up massive tariffs on imported chips

So the US is saying a foreign competitor can't sell to a major market, and if you want to sell to my market, pay massive tariffs.

 

[511]

@LightningZ71

Yay can't wait for Intel to become the next Boeing.

Yeah better safe than sorry we already how Boeing keep screwing around and Agent 47 is their best employee.

US is still capitalist?

1. Ban China from using TSMC

Already done for some companies

2. Invest a stake in Intel

3. Put up massive tariffs on imported chips

So the US is saying a foreign competitor can't sell to a major market, and if you want to sell to my market, pay massive tariffs.

The problem is that the customer is American companies and they have to pay tariffs not TSMC cause it's their Chips.

 

[mikegg]

The problem is that the customer is American companies and they have to pay tariffs not TSMC cause it's their Chips.

That's part of the problem, yes. The other problems are it forces US companies to use an inferior product (Intel nodes and non-cutting edge TSMC Arizona node) and lowers demand because prices are higher.

 

[511]

That's part of the problem, yes. The other problems are it forces US companies to use an inferior product (Intel nodes and non-cutting edge TSMC Arizona node) and lowers demand because prices are higher.

Well the problem of non cutting edge node is a non issue who is saying to put your flagship products on Intel node just use the node according to the product.
Mediatek found use for Intel16 I think customer can find use for Intel 3/18A/16/ UMC 12nm.

 

[mikegg]

Well the problem of non cutting edge node is a non issue who is saying to put your flagship products on Intel node just use the node according to the product.
Mediatek found use for Intel16 I think customer can find use for Intel 3/18A/16/ UMC 12nm.

It is not a non-issue because some industries depend heavily on new TSMC nodes. Apple needs to convince customers to upgrade their iPhones each year and a major part of that is more efficient/faster chips. Data centers need to use lower power GPUs from N2 node. Just a few examples.

 

[511]

It is not a non-issue because some industries depend heavily on new TSMC nodes. Apple needs to convince customers to upgrade their iPhones each year and a major part of that is more efficient/faster chips. Data centers need to use lower power GPUs from N2 node. Just a few examples.

What about moving your n-1 design to Intel node? You don't suddenly stop making N3 chips when you make N2 node chips.
IFS needs an anchor customer alongside Intel products probably someone from Mobile for node dev Intel Products is perfect for HPC.
What about Packing ? Intel does packing and it should be a non issues Intel offers variety of packing capability similar to TSMC except for few difference like HB.
What about SE series?