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

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DisEnchantment

DisEnchantment

Golden Member
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.

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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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FEEL FREE TO CREATE A NEW THREAD FOR 2025+ OUTLOOK, I WILL LINK IT HERE
 
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Using a combo of knowing die size from Techinsights (121.4mm2) + low rez die shot from yole group, you would get:
Tensor G5 X4: ~2.5mm2
Tensor G5 X725: ~0.91mm2
Unfort no one knows the L2 capacity for each core, so comparisons are not worth much.
~0.7mm2 is the area without what I think is just the L2 sram arrays, which is marginally smaller than the A720 in the 9400, and like ~20% smaller than than the A725 in the Xring O1. Though the A725's also clock ~10% faster in the Xring than the tensor G5.
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LightningZ71 said:
TSMC has insatiable demand at their doorsteps combined with the very real threat of a major geopolitical catastrophe in the next 24 months. They would be insane not to be doing what they're doing.
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it is crazy to think that if China conquers Taiwan theres a high chance of the fabs being sabotaged/destroyed by themselves or even US to not give any secrets that helps chinese build their own tech?
 
Claudiovict said:
it is crazy to think that if China conquers Taiwan theres a high chance of the fabs being sabotaged/destroyed by themselves or even US to not give any secrets that helps chinese build their own tech?
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It’s not crazy at all. That’s the plan. ASML will lock them down too before any kaboom booms. But they will go kaboom boom.
 
Claudiovict said:
it is crazy to think that if China conquers Taiwan theres a high chance of the fabs being sabotaged/destroyed by themselves or even US to not give any secrets that helps chinese build their own tech?
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The EUV scanners would be useless to them even if they were handed over completely undamaged. Without constant support from ASML they will be out of operation within days or weeks with no way to get them working again. Heck, the same would be true if TSMC quit paying for support. TSMC has a cadre of ASML engineers permanently on site, they aren't going to stick around and start providing service to China if they took over Taiwan. Without constant care and feeding they are semi sized bricks.

Even if China had access to them to take them apart there are so many parts and systems in there that they wouldn't be able to acquire anywhere so they'd have to build their own. But the tolerances are crazy, specialized materials only one company in the world makes, that sort of thing. Much of it is controlled via proprietary software they would not have access to.

Honestly if the west had wanted to delay China getting EUV as long as possible perhaps the best way would have been to ship them one of ASML's EUV scanners and let them try to reverse engineer it. They would get to EUV more quickly taking another path rather than trying to reproduce all the complex subsystems that make ASML's Rube Goldberg beasts work.
 
Doug S said:
The EUV scanners would be useless to them even if they were handed over completely undamaged. Without constant support from ASML they will be out of operation within days or weeks with no way to get them working again.
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That would be the end of the US Stock market. That will never happen.

I hope you don't have your retirement fund in stocks if you feel that way.
 
jdubs03 said:
Found this to be pretty interesting (it’s a reply to Jukan; both are worth checking out):
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Jobs that talked about a 10-year tech cycle.

The Intel/TSMC process lead/lag started around 2017. It would suggest flipping again in 2027.
jpiniero said:
That would be the end of the US Stock market. That will never happen.

I hope you don't have your retirement fund in stocks if you feel that way.
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US is 80% of the entire world's finance market, but mostly built on fake things like paper contracts and derivatives with enormous leverage. Silver for example on Comex has much as 300:1 ratio. Means, it's a ticking time bomb that has to vanish at one point. It's extremely shaky right now with 4 regions around the world potentially a catalyst for WW3, reverse carry trade, unsustainable debt.

Unexpected things happen because it's unexpected by many, but has underlying principles.
 
jpiniero said:
That would be the end of the US Stock market. That will never happen.

I hope you don't have your retirement fund in stocks if you feel that way.
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That's guaranteed to happen if China invades Taiwan. You think they are going to just take over TSMC and keep it going? You're in la la land if you believe that.

I am mostly out of stocks and have been since last February. Which has worked out well since I put chunk of it in gold, though I wish I'd put it in silver! Not because I think a Taiwan invasion is imminent, but because we have a toddler in charge of tariffs.
 
Doug S said:
That's guaranteed to happen if China invades Taiwan. You think they are going to just take over TSMC and keep it going? You're in la la land if you believe that.
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Do you really think Taiwan will blow up their own economy just cause China takes over. What do the people gain? Nothing lol.

They only have it as a threat to keep the invasion off, actually doing it is just a suicide pill which doesn't do anything to China in the wake of the invasion.

Nobody really does this kind of thing irl during war. Small self sabotage might be implemented tactically but full scale blow up all the semi production will be the dumbest thing to do. What does Taiwan do after that? They won't have any economy any more and its not like China actually NEEDS TSMC, its just a nice to have.
 
desrever said:
Do you really think Taiwan will blow up their own economy just cause China takes over. What do the people gain? Nothing lol.
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Maybe I misread but the argument is that continued ASML maintenace is a necessity simply to stop the collapse of TSMC output.

And I'm inclined to agree. The maintenance contracts are not only because corporations desire regular revenue above all, it's also inherent in machinery this complex. An outright invasion may cause these maintenance agreements to be politically impossible. With the EUV machinery in particular it seems almost assuredly impossible given ASML SD's export controls would then extend to Taiwan.
 
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desrever said:
Do you really think Taiwan will blow up their own economy just cause China takes over. What do the people gain? Nothing lol.

They only have it as a threat to keep the invasion off, actually doing it is just a suicide pill which doesn't do anything to China in the wake of the invasion.

Nobody really does this kind of thing irl during war. Small self sabotage might be implemented tactically but full scale blow up all the semi production will be the dumbest thing to do. What does Taiwan do after that? They won't have any economy any more and its not like China actually NEEDS TSMC, its just a nice to have.
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The ones in charge of ordering a scorched earth of their fabs aren't necessary concerned with Taiwan's economy because an invasion implies there no longer is a Taiwan in the traditional sense. It would go under the governance of the CCP. The leadership of Taiwan would become political prisons at best. It's not illogical for a country about to lose all independence and become conquered by another to self-sabotage their economy - That's one of the key characteristics of a guerilla campaign.

Either way, there's no scenario where Taiwan maintains their existing semi-output under invasion.
 
MoistOintment said:
The ones in charge of ordering a scorched earth of their fabs aren't necessary concerned with Taiwan's economy because an invasion implies there no longer is a Taiwan in the traditional sense. It would go under the governance of the CCP. The leadership of Taiwan would become political prisons at best. It's not illogical for a country about to lose all independence and become conquered by another to self-sabotage their economy - That's one of the key characteristics of a guerilla campaign.

Either way, there's no scenario where Taiwan maintains their existing semi-output under invasion.
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Yup. I don’t think the people there getting invaded are going to be in a friendly mood to just give over their expertise, and equipment (regardless of if it can be properly used) to their sworn enemy.

And even if they didn’t sabotage their facilities, why would they go work when they’re now commanded by Xi and the CCP? Their livelihoods will have been completely turned upside down. And there isn’t really any certainty that they’ll be paid the same as an incentive. There would likely be a “different” type of incentive.

Working for their new overlords just to help their nationalized companies out seems pretty unlikely.
 
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It will be interesting to see what actually happens to TSNCs output if they don't go scorched earth. If the West intervenes on behalf of Taiwan, it is highly likely that China just embargos the entire west from TSMC exports as punishment, forcing them all to come to the table for HEAVILY unbalanced trade deals that likely destroy their economies. If the West doesn't intervene, then China will see this as acceptance that they can do what they want in the east, and it'll only be a matter of time before they take over the rest of Asia in an effort to monopolize the rest of IC production.
 
Fjodor2001 said:
before the Taiwan situation erupts.
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The window of opportunity for China closes in 10 months when US elections take place, Xi just purged a bunch of generals, classic move before big starting big war.
LightningZ71 said:
If the West intervenes on behalf of Taiwan
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Who is the West? Even if USA uses force to protect Taiwan which currently looks at exactly 0.0000 probability, then every other ally is so pissed they won't do a thing - they are too far anyway. It's basically perfect one in a 1000 years opportunity for China to act, and they've been preparing for this for at least 30 years.

jdubs03 said:
And even if they didn’t sabotage their facilities, why would they go work when they’re now commanded by Xi and the CCP?
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Because they will be promised that their jobs will be kept and maybe they get extra holidays (on mainland China), and if they don't like that they will end up in "labour camps" - they won't be able to run away from the island, what do you think they'll choose? There is at least 40% pro-China voting population in Taiwan.
MoistOintment said:
The ones in charge of ordering a scorched earth of their fabs aren't necessary concerned with Taiwan's economy because an invasion implies there no longer is a Taiwan in the traditional sense. It would go under the governance of the CCP.
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China will promise everybody who disobeys these orders huge riches, especially those who are in charge of those decisions.
 
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By the way - if Taiwan blows up TSMC stuff to smithereens then it would cause massive recession in the West too: stock market drops will be legendary because how heavy indexes rely on high tech now.

Because of that "the West" will not only do **** to stop it but instead call to Taiwan to surrender, and why not - "the West" officially recognised that Taiwan is part of China, only like 12 countries in the world recognised that Taiwan independent, here they are:

Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, Eswatini, Tuvalu, Palau, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

How much help would these countries provide? Zero, they can't and they won't.

And legally "the West" won't even be able to do jack because their own laws recognise Taiwan as part of China, they got sold off long time ago, if it wasn't for TSMC China would have taken over probably 20 years ago.

Mark my words - most "Western" countries will be calling on Taiwan to surrender and avoid bloodshed, and especially destruction of property vital for the world economy.
 
Win2012R2 said:
Who is the West? Even if USA uses force to protect Taiwan which currently looks at exactly 0.0000 probability, then every other ally is so pissed they won't do a thing - they are too far anyway. It's basically perfect one in a 1000 years opportunity for China to act, and they've been preparing for this for at least 30 years.
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Really? I see it as closer to 100%. Also, no way the US allows China to take the fabs intact. I'm sure there have already been plans made to take care of them in some way should it be deemed necessary.
 
Fjodor2001 said:
I wonder if this current AI Datacenter craze is some attempt at securing enough chips in the US before the Taiwan situation erupts.
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There have been "Vibes and Tweets" from Intel investors on Twitter about Intel benefiting from tariff eruptions and Taiwan eruptions. It has been going on for a year.

But it has all been a delusion. There are no tariffs on semis and Taiwan is not erupting.
 
Joe NYC said:
There have been "Vibes and Tweets" from Intel investors on Twitter about Intel benefiting from tariff eruptions and Taiwan eruptions. It has been going on for a year.

But it has all been a delusion. There are no tariffs on semis and Taiwan is not erupting.
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I was mostly thinking about that the AI Datacenters are hoarding nVidia GPUs.

And you are sure the Taiwan conflict will not happen because… ?
 
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