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

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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.

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N7 performance is more or less understood.
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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.


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

Golden Member
Jun 20, 2024
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Considering that GF hasn't made it past gf12+ with (finfets, thanks spell check) fingers, yes. SMIC is in the 6nm range, full rate 7nm, "6" nm enhancements, and volume with roughly 5nm multi pattern DUV nodes. I suspect that at their equivalent 5nm nodes, they are yielding better than Samsung and have more volume than Intel does with Intel7.
Damn... even SMIC defeatinmg GF sounds bad...
 

Thibsie

Golden Member
Apr 25, 2017
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That's what I meant by fake IDM. Gelsinger called it IDM 2.0 for a reason, because they claimed they wanted 3rd party vendors long ago. But just like their initial mobile efforts were only a token gesture, so was their foundry effort. It took many tries for them to get it right. But it really was in those days they should have went full in with the strategy, because it's a bit late now.

AFAIR correctly, it also killed LG smartphone SOC business they wanted to launch.
Had their SOC scheduled to be fab @ Intel. It was cancelled.
 

Joe NYC

Diamond Member
Jun 26, 2021
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AFAIR correctly, it also killed LG smartphone SOC business they wanted to launch.
Had their SOC scheduled to be fab @ Intel. It was cancelled.

Qualcomm was apparently also going through the process of trying to fab its chips (IFS 1.0 era). The process was a nightmare, Intel tried to butt into Qualcomm's business and it was eventually abandoned.
 

regen1

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Aug 28, 2025
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511

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Jul 12, 2024
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Qualcomm was apparently also going through the process of trying to fab its chips (IFS 1.0 era). The process was a nightmare, Intel tried to butt into Qualcomm's business and it was eventually abandoned.
10nm name a better Screw up in Node History
 

Thunder 57

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Aug 19, 2007
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10nm name a better Screw up in Node History

Don't think it's possible. IIRC TSMC 130nm might be up there. It's part of the reason R300 excelled because they stayed on the mature 150nm. Intel 14nm wasn't great. Glofo was never great except maybe 32nm (maybe 28nm because its density but losing SOI sucked). None of that compares to 10nm though.
 
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511

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Don't think it's possible. IIRC TSMC 130nm might be up there. It's part of the reason R300 excelled because they stayed on the mature 150nm. Intel 14nm wasn't great. Glofo was never great except maybe 32nm. None of that compares to 10nm though.
14nm was a fine node it's the '+' that's the problem with the process
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
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They didn't clock great but that eDRAM was great for games. Made for solid laptop chips as well IIRC. I wish they didn't give up on eDRAM and I bet they wish that today as well.
Eh it wasn't that great. Tuned DDR4 rendered it irrelevant in the 4c Skylake generation.