"Taiwan News" is a garbage source. TSMC doesn't even mention "1nm" or anything equivalent.
FlameTail
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Subscribe to read | Financial Times
News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication
www.ft.com
Damn. At the rate TSMC is pumping money, i doubt the others can catch up.
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Ajay
Lifer
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Interestingly, despite the fact that Tim Cook will attend the upcoming celebratory event headlined by President Biden, Apple is not expected to be using any of the Arizona based Fabs for it's SoCs.
Of course not. TSMC's keeping them on an N-1 node, but Apple needs the latest for their flagship chips.
Ajay
Lifer
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And, apparently, Apple won't be moving any N-1 production for older products back from Taiwan to the USA - which makes sense when I think about it.
Ajay
Lifer
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Also, Ian Cutress did the math for us. 600k wafers per year is only 50kwpm - so two plants will be producing about 1/2 the output of a Gigafab. Sounds a bit odd to me that a $40B investment doesn't even match the output of a Gigafab!
Sure they will, Apple doesn't sell only products on with leading edge chips. They will still be selling iPhone 14 until Sept 2024, there might be an iPhone SE that uses an N5/N4 chip even longer. Ditto for Macs.
Cook said Apple would be "the biggest customer" at this TSMC fab, though that's not saying much since Apple is something crazy like 25% of TSMC's revenue.
Maybe one of the reasons that the ex-CEO claimed Arizona product would be ~50% more costly than Taiwanese.
Saylick
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Hm... I have to guess that the price increase includes the need to ship the completed dies back to Asia where the majority of the packaging and substrate manufacturing is located. I mean, isn't one of the primary benefits of having things fabbed in Asia (specifically Taiwan) is that most, if not all, of the assembly process is within the same region? When you look at a modern AMD CPU for example, it says "Diffused in Taiwan, Assembled in Malaysia" or something like that, no? If so, it kind of defeats the point in diversifying TSMC fabs because it's just one part of the overall production line. Seems like I should look into whether or not the other key players are also opening up shop in Arizona...
I saw some people trying to bring this to the attention of those writing the CHIPS bill. Whether money for the less sexy pre and post production stuff was included or it is all for fabs I don't know.
moinmoin
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Aside overall production line being local to Asia as mentioned, the building knowledge as well as fab configuration is likely very optimized locally as well. TSMC organically builds from R&D to Gigafabs, equipment is likely shared and reused to a degree and there is some flexibility of multiple fabs being situated close to each other. Ground up new fabs far away from there obviously can't profit of all that.
Ajay
Lifer
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Yeah, the article I read was clearly wrong. It's looking like more and more of these n-1/2 are SoCs going into older/cheaper products that will be assembled in India. Interesting changes ahead in Apple's global manufacturing chain.
Ajay
Lifer
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I just ran across and interesting video on TSMC in the US. One curious point, to me, is that the CHIPS act doesn't appear to have targeted the semiconductor supply chain like I thought it was supposed to (for example, in packaging). Anyway - I thought it might be a good video for those participating in this thread.
Saylick
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Caught this article about SRAM scaling, or the lack thereof, today: https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/7343/iedm-2022-did-we-just-witness-the-death-of-sram/
Begun, the SRAM stacking war has.
Begun, the SRAM stacking war has.
FlameTail
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Will the transition to GAAFET transistors help SRAM scaling kick back into action?
As I understand it, current SRAM use FinFETs, which seemed to have finally hit a wall. Since GAAFET is the successor of FinFET, it should circumvent this problem right? Atleast for short-medium term?
As I understand it, current SRAM use FinFETs, which seemed to have finally hit a wall. Since GAAFET is the successor of FinFET, it should circumvent this problem right? Atleast for short-medium term?
moinmoin
Diamond Member
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Are Intel's ambitious fab plans breaking apart again?
www.politico.eu
"The company had said construction was expected to begin in the first half of next year, with production planned to come online in 2027.
But Intel now sees a “difficult market situation” and can no longer commit to the planned start date for construction, Volksstimme reported, pointing to increased costs and a call for higher government subsidies."
Intel backs out of planned construction start date for chip plant in Germany: Report
US chip giant can no longer commit to starting construction by mid-2023, Volksstimme reports.
www.politico.eu
"The company had said construction was expected to begin in the first half of next year, with production planned to come online in 2027.
But Intel now sees a “difficult market situation” and can no longer commit to the planned start date for construction, Volksstimme reported, pointing to increased costs and a call for higher government subsidies."
I can argue a good faith reason why this is occurring, a bad faith one, and so on and so on. Many possibilities it is unknowable but it is speculative and projective remains.Are Intel's ambitious fab plans breaking apart again?
Intel backs out of planned construction start date for chip plant in Germany: Report
US chip giant can no longer commit to starting construction by mid-2023, Volksstimme reports.
"The company had said construction was expected to begin in the first half of next year, with production planned to come online in 2027.
But Intel now sees a “difficult market situation” and can no longer commit to the planned start date for construction, Volksstimme reported, pointing to increased costs and a call for higher government subsidies."
Pretty much higher interest rates makes it more expensive to build fabs, but will also lower demand for fabs, so it is a feedback loop where higher interest rates makes this part of the market less necessary. Likewise there is a demand that is psychic that people really do want more tech, more smart stuff, so on and so on, but higher interest rates delay that to a slightly farther future.
DrMrLordX
Lifer
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Wow, that's certainly audacious. The EU ought to ask for its money back.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/BWXBGLLI2FJEXA7NLEL2BPEZME.jpg)
TSMC starts volume production of most advanced chips in Taiwan
Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC), began mass production of its most advanced chips in southern Taiwan on Thursday and the company's chairman said it would continue to expand capacity on the island.
www.reuters.com
TSMC is only starting mass production of N3 now.
Ajay
Lifer
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Some additional TSMC N3(x) information: https://www.semianalysis.com/p/tsmcs-3nm-conundrum-does-it-even
The cost numbers there contradict some other sources.
In light of "SemiAnalysis's" history of claiming unsubstantiated rumor as fact, inclined to take that with more than a grain of salt.
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