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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[Joe NYC]

The context of the conversation was future investments, not historical.

Pace of construction and investment is accelerating. The first fab sold out its capacity immediately, and there is not going to be a shortage of orders from US based fabless companies as far as eye can see.

TSMC has so many orders, they have to turn some customers away, reduce their order sizes. Why not continue to build at a place that has plentiful power, space, workforce and customers?

 

[DrMrLordX]

What is the real benefit for TSMC to build fabs in the United States of America?

It more-or-less secures US customers for your N-1/N-2 node that you plan to produce in those fabs. Demand for wafers is pretty high right now. Having some extra N4 (or whatever) is not a bad thing. And of course it aligns with the geopolitical concerns already mentioned here.

 

[Khato]

Why not continue to build at a place that has plentiful power, space, workforce and customers?

Well, the US at least has half of those requirements covered - space and customers. There remains a gap in available skilled workforce for semiconductor manufacturing in the US. Then AI combined with a preference towards shareholders rather than infrastructure over the last few decades has resulted in power by no means being plentiful.

To be clear, I fully expect TSMC to continue their current pace of expansion in Arizona. I just highly doubt they'll get anywhere near the lofty numbers they're currently throwing around to keep tariffs at bay.

 

[511]

TSMC has so many orders, they have to turn some customers away, reduce their order sizes. Why not continue to build at a place that has plentiful power, space, workforce and customers?

Cause TSMC is a manufacturing like Memory companies unlike their customers what if the AI bubble pops and they are left with unfilled fabs if customer cancels contracts? Customer will just cancel and pay whatever in the contract but TSMC will be left with losses .

 

[DrMrLordX]

Cause TSMC is a manufacturing like Memory companies unlike their customers what if the AI bubble pops and they are left with unfilled fabs if customer cancels contracts? Customer will just cancel and pay whatever in the contract but TSMC will be left with losses .

That's why they make some customers pay up front for allocations.

 

[511]

That's why they make some customers pay up front for allocations.

There must be a cancellation clause in contract though cause if you want to cancel you have to pay us but Hyperscalers and Nvidia Apple has insane FCF so they would be fine