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

DisEnchantment · Apr 24, 2020

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.

TSMC Radically Boosts CapEx to Expand Production Capacities, To Reach $14B For 2019

www.anandtech.com

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.

Samsung’s Aggressive EUV Plans: 6nm Production in H2, 5nm & 4nm On Track

www.anandtech.com

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

SiliconFly · Sep 5, 2024

DavidC1 said:
If it isn't affected, why is 18A performing like 20A over Intel 3, rather than getting the extra 10% as promised? Maybe they canned the extra work for the 10%.

I don't think it's even possible for them to ditch the extra 10% performance they mentioned for 18A even if they want. PDK 0.9 was released more than a year ago.

jdubs03 said:
Maybe with 14A they’ll get that 10pct back!
(Wishful thinking right there).

Many believe 14A is gonna be awesome. On the contrary, 14A is expected to be the world's first High-NA EUV node. Regular EUV itself was very challenging. And I'm sure High-NA is gonna be a b***h! Intel getting everything right on the first time including PPA, Yield, Capacity, On-time Ramp, etc is very very unlikely. I wouldn't bet too much on 14A.

Doug S said:
Look at TSMC, they aren't getting much of a shrink with N2 and A16 either. You can quibble over the node naming, but linear scaling is running out of gas. Once they've both gone CFET, we'll have to go 3D or post silicon to further improve density.

True!

SiliconFly · Sep 5, 2024

DavidC1 said:
... for Intel, to live up to their claims. That wish is evaporating little by little every day.

Little by little is an understatement. Their current financials look bleak at best. Too much investments in foundries & not much returns. They'll soon sink if they can't arrest the leak.

Funny thing is, Intel has now very clearly demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubts that their client/server products division can thrive without their own foundries!

I'm now praying that they cut IFS lose before it pulls everything down!

DavidC1 said:
... AMD still pursues the clockspeed is king approach, they'll follow Intel to the grave too.

I was under the assumption Zen 5 will easily crush this gen Intel parts outright based on their past execution. But now they're looking worse than Intel.

jdubs03 · Sep 5, 2024

Good chat about IFS (and LNL, other stuff):

Starts at the 2:28:40 mark.

dttprofessor · Sep 5, 2024

For long term ,ifs is base of intel.
For short term,making more money is Top priority to intel now.

Hitman928 · Sep 10, 2024

I know it's not leading edge fabs, but this is the closest thread for this news. TI announced they are receiving $1.6B in funding from the CHIPS act and ultimately expects to receive between $6B - $8B in additional tax credit to help finance the building/expanding of 3 fabs. The fabs nodes are in the 28 nm - 130 nm range which may not be very exciting, but these nodes are still in very commonly used in analog/RF/IoT designs.

Texas Instruments signs preliminary agreement to receive up to $1.6 billion in CHIPS and Science Act proposed funding for semiconductor manufacturing in Texas and Utah

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS: The U.S. Department of Commerce has proposed up to $1.6 billion for TI in direct funding through the CHIPS and Science Act to support three 300mm semiconductor wafer fabs under...

news.ti.com

Dayman1225 · Monday at 4:44 PM

Intel and Amazon ink a multi billion dollar deal for 18A “Ai fabric” chip and custom Xeon6 on Intel 3 process. Looking into deeper collaboration for future chips for 18A, 18AP and 14A

Intel and AWS Expand Strategic Collaboration, Helping Advance U.S.-Based Chip Manufacturing

www.intc.com

Intel also announced they are setting IFS up as an independent subsidiary within Intel and that Germany and Poland fab buildouts will be paused for 2 years

Pat Gelsinger on Foundry Momentum, Progress on Plan

A message from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to employees regarding the next phase of Intel's transformation.

www.intel.com

OriAr · Monday at 4:47 PM

Dayman1225 said:
Intel and Amazon ink a multi billion dollar deal for 18A “Ai fabric” chip and custom Xeon6 on Intel 3 process. Looking into deeper collaboration for future chips for 18A, 18AP and 14A

Intel and AWS Expand Strategic Collaboration, Helping Advance U.S.-Based Chip Manufacturing

www.intc.com

Intel also announced they are setting IFS up as an independent subsidiary within Intel

Pat Gelsinger on Foundry Momentum, Progress on Plan

A message from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to employees regarding the next phase of Intel's transformation.

www.intel.com

That's pretty big for IFS, a public vote of confidence from Amazon will do IFS a world of good regarding confidence from other potential customers.

Dayman1225 · Monday at 4:49 PM

Pat also spoke with Patrick Moorhead, saying that the custom chip goes beyond what they’ve done in the past

https://twitter.com/x/status/1835772073060553147

Hitman928 · Monday at 5:15 PM

Dayman1225 said:
Pat also spoke with Patrick Moorhead, saying that the custom chip goes beyond what they’ve done in the past

https://twitter.com/x/status/1835772073060553147

Thanks. The additional details are good news. Seems like Intel is finally offering actual semi-custom designs for big players and scored a nice win with AWS because of it, though that is still speculation at this point. The AI fabric is a decent consolation prize I guess to not getting your actual AI chips sold. From the foundry perspective, this may help a little, but it's still all Intel made products from what I can tell, so I'm not sure it actually helps IFS outside of more revenue in general.

The plan to make IFS a subsidy may help get some of their competitors to use them in the future, but I don't think that's what was holding others (e.g., Broadcom) back, so they'll still need to fix the main issues first.

Doug S · Monday at 5:30 PM

Maybe Intel's recent troubles will be a good thing in the long run. I have been saying since day one that Intel had to spin off the foundry for it to be successful, but figured their x86 teams enjoy their special treatment so much that it would take until the foundry did more external business than internal (which I guessed would happen around 2030 or so) before the board would be willing to pull the trigger.

Now they're forced to do it earlier, which will really help the foundry since their x86 guys won't have that special access any longer which I think would be a blocker for some of the bigger potential customers, plus companies will be able to make strategic investments without worrying they are propping up a competitor (i.e. AMD and maybe Qualcomm if ARM PCs ever make fetch happen)

If A18 really is a separate die, or even if not their plan is for the Pro and non-Pro SoCs to be seperate dies in the future, that would open up the door for Apple to hand Intel a lot of volume. Less risk making the non-Pro version since it would be going into the lower end model, and Intel would probably give them good pricing in exchange for a fat prepayment that let them build out the space they'd need for such a big commitment of wafer volume. Be a good "beta test" for the relationship, and if Intel can match/beat TSMC then Apple would eventually send most of their volume Intel's way.

Hitman928 · Monday at 5:36 PM

Doug S said:
Maybe Intel's recent troubles will be a good thing in the long run. I have been saying since day one that Intel had to spin off the foundry for it to be successful, but figured their x86 teams enjoy their special treatment so much that it would take until the foundry did more external business than internal (which I guessed would happen around 2030 or so) before the board would be willing to pull the trigger.

Now they're forced to do it earlier, which will really help the foundry since their x86 guys won't have that special access any longer which I think would be a blocker for some of the bigger potential customers, plus companies will be able to make strategic investments without worrying they are propping up a competitor (i.e. AMD and maybe Qualcomm if ARM PCs ever make fetch happen)

If A18 really is a separate die, or even if not their plan is for the Pro and non-Pro SoCs to be seperate dies in the future, that would open up the door for Apple to hand Intel a lot of volume. Less risk making the non-Pro version since it would be going into the lower end model, and Intel would probably give them good pricing in exchange for a fat prepayment that let them build out the space they'd need for such a big commitment of wafer volume. Be a good "beta test" for the relationship, and if Intel can match/beat TSMC then Apple would eventually send most of their volume Intel's way.

Just for clarity's sake, Intel isn't spinning off the foundry, at least not yet. IFS will still be owned by Intel, it will just operate as a subsidiary. If Intel does spin it off completely, I expect it will be a bit at a time as they sells shares to outside investors to raise funds.

Doug S · Monday at 5:52 PM

Hitman928 said:
Just for clarity's sake, Intel isn't spinning off the foundry, at least not yet. IFS will still be owned by Intel, it will just operate as a subsidiary. If Intel does spin it off completely, I expect it will be a bit at a time as they sells shares to outside investors to raise funds.

Yes but it will be a separate corporation with its own separate board so it is "separate enough" in my mind, even if it won't have its own stock symbol yet. It would still be able to solicit outside investments in the form of prepayments years in advance like Apple made in TSMC that got them to where they are today. That's probably what AWS is talking about, even if Intel is behind TSMC they might get an equal or better process simply because they aren't getting early access to TSMC nodes like Apple. Plus Intel is probably willing to cut them a deal on price for the early commitment.

controlflow · Monday at 6:20 PM

Doug S said:
Yes but it will be a separate corporation with its own separate board so it is "separate enough" in my mind, even if it won't have its own stock symbol yet. It would still be able to solicit outside investments in the form of prepayments years in advance like Apple made in TSMC that got them to where they are today. That's probably what AWS is talking about, even if Intel is behind TSMC they might get an equal or better process simply because they aren't getting early access to TSMC nodes like Apple. Plus Intel is probably willing to cut them a deal on price for the early commitment.

In addition to getting outside investments as prepayments, Intel could also IPO the subsidiary and have its own stock symbol and still retain majority ownership similar to what they did with Mobileye. I suspect something like that won't happen in the near term though since Intel Foundry on its own today has horrific financials, but doing this could make sense down the road if Foundry can start to pull some moderate income.

Overall, this seems like a pretty logical move from Intel to make foundry more separate and satisfy customers and create a setup to potentially allow more external investments all while still mostly owning the fabs.

I think it is important to have a viable alternative to TSMC so hopefully this plan is successful.

poke01 · Tuesday at 10:25 PM

Apple Mobile Processors Are Now Made in the USA. By TSMC

[Exclusive] The iPhone maker is ready to be the first client of TSMC's new Arizona fab. Finally, the iPhone will boast a processor that's Made in America

timculpan.substack.com

Apple A16 so N4P being made in USA

Doug S · 2024-09-18T01:50:11-0400

poke01 said:
Apple Mobile Processors Are Now Made in the USA. By TSMC

[Exclusive] The iPhone maker is ready to be the first client of TSMC's new Arizona fab. Finally, the iPhone will boast a processor that's Made in America

timculpan.substack.com

Apple A16 so N4P being made in USA

It was always expected that the Arizona fab would make N5 family stuff when N3 was state of the art. They'll probably start making N3 class stuff in Arizona around the time Apple's leading edge is using A16.

Arizona is never gonna be high volume for Apple unless TSMC stops restricting the leading edge stuff to Taiwan. Obviously for multiple reasons Apple would like it if TSMC had leading edge production in both Taiwan and the US, but Taiwan's govt may not see that as being in their interest as far as US willingness to intervene in a conflict with China.

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

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