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.


N7 performance is more or less understood.


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.




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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Doug S

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Feb 8, 2020
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TSMC N2 might be over 30k a wafer. Which sounds about right.

I think that's pretty much what everyone was assuming. At least they've pretty much maxed out the layers that will require EUV, but unfortunately high NA is around the corner threatening to more than double the cost of layers using it!
 
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desrever

Senior member
Nov 6, 2021
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Trailing edge is going to be where all the consumer stuff are going to be made, nobody is going to be able to afford cutting edge nodes with consumer level margins soon.
 

poke01

Platinum Member
Mar 8, 2022
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N3E is not Apple exclusive it’s used by Qualcomm and Mediatek and later AMD in January.

The only difference is Apple released their products early.
 

Joe NYC

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Jun 26, 2021
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True, though I was mostly looking at Strix Point and Granite Ridge. Halo is low volume and high price/high margin.

I went online to look at Strix Point laptops, and considering how many models are out there in $2,000 tp $3,000 price range with NVidia GPU, Strix Halo may not be a complete outlier as far as pricing. But it is going to be missing that NVidia sticker.

But the question is if AMD can establish MacBook Pro equivalent market (equivalent to Mx models with iGPU) on the PC side. Cost of a bit N3E SoC is going keep its pricing significantly higher than competing iGPU models on the PC side, so the question will be how well it can crack the NVidia dGPU segment to be a decent volume consumer product.
 

jdubs03

Golden Member
Oct 1, 2013
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I went online to look at Strix Point laptops, and considering how many models are out there in $2,000 tp $3,000 price range with NVidia GPU, Strix Halo may not be a complete outlier as far as pricing. But it is going to be missing that NVidia sticker.

But the question is if AMD can establish MacBook Pro equivalent market (equivalent to Mx models with iGPU) on the PC side. Cost of a bit N3E SoC is going keep its pricing significantly higher than competing iGPU models on the PC side, so the question will be how well it can crack the NVidia dGPU segment to be a decent volume consumer product.
Most of the ones I was seeing had RTX 4070s or 4060s like in the Asus Zephryus/ProArt. The higher SKUs either have the 7945HX3D/HX or the 14900HX.

Did you see any with the higher class GPUs?
 

Aapje

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Mar 21, 2022
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N3E might be a good example of the future, where the first version of a new node goes to the companies willing to pay a lot for extra performance even if the price/performance doesn't really improve, and then the price-optimized version goes to consumers.
 

MadRat

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
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If you selling a $1000 videocard with good margins it might make sense to push bleeding edge premium processes. But history seems to show the affordable option eats the bleeding edge for breakfast.
 
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jpiniero

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Oct 1, 2010
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N3E might be a good example of the future, where the first version of a new node goes to the companies willing to pay a lot for extra performance even if the price/performance doesn't really improve, and then the price-optimized version goes to consumers.

It's looking more like the future nodes are just going to cost even more.

It would not be that surprising if node progression ends because it would be tough to justify the cost (as opposed to feasibility).
 
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Aapje

Golden Member
Mar 21, 2022
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It's looking more like the future nodes are just going to cost even more.

It would not be that surprising if node progression ends because it would be tough to justify the cost (as opposed to feasibility).

As long as the AI boom continues, there is a lot of demand for the best nodes. But I can see a AI crisis having a serious impact on the chip industry.

In general, inflated pricing should make the chip industry more sensitive to economic downturns and such.
 

MadRat

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
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AI actually has a hard scalar limitation proportionate to operations per second available so bean counters can predict very accurately performance limitations of both their own devices and those of the competition, setting prices accordingly.
 

Doug S

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Feb 8, 2020
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N3E might be a good example of the future, where the first version of a new node goes to the companies willing to pay a lot for extra performance even if the price/performance doesn't really improve, and then the price-optimized version goes to consumers.

N3B cost more because it had more EUV layers including some EUV double patterning. N3E backed off that which compromised density slightly, but it reduced cost and increased yield. The reason no one wanted N3B is because they knew N3E was coming a year later, and probably Apple was the only one who could twist TSMC's arm hard enough to get KGD pricing. For everyone else it would be "at your risk" and would just have to have hoped yields were up by the time their wafers started getting delivered. No one else was willing to take that risk - the only other major customer for N3B, Intel, didn't start taking deliveries until N3E was almost out of the gate and Apple's needs were down to a trickle. Worse, N3B didn't have any follow ons. With N3E you can take your existing design and do an optical shrink and deploy it on N3P, there was no path forward for an N3B design.

Compare with N2 where N2P is not going to reduce EUV layers so other than the optical shrink meaning you get more chips per wafer (if you don't change your design) there are not likely to be any cost reductions. A16 appears to be N2P + BSPDN and the way the latter is implemented imposes more cost than whatever area improvement it may drive for certain designs. Anyone holding off N2 wanting a discount won't get it for several years until A14 is out and you get what is the N3 family equivalent of what N4P is now - a mature "final" node in an N+1 process family that's already been partially depreciated by first movers like Apple and Nvidia.

In other words, with N2 it'll go back to how it has always been in the foundry business. N3B was an aberration, not a hint at the future.
 
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Hougy

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Jan 13, 2021
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RTX

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Compare with N2 where N2P is not going to reduce EUV layers so other than the optical shrink meaning you get more chips per wafer (if you don't change your design) there are not likely to be any cost reductions. A16 appears to be N2P + BSPDN and the way the latter is implemented imposes more cost than whatever area improvement it may drive for certain designs.
Density is the same as N2P.
 
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
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I went online to look at Strix Point laptops, and considering how many models are out there in $2,000 tp $3,000 price range with NVidia GPU, Strix Halo may not be a complete outlier as far as pricing. But it is going to be missing that NVidia sticker.
How much of that is the SoC, though? I would think not that much (though the majority of AMD lappies sold are still going to be Hawk Point, which is much cheaper).
 

desrever

Senior member
Nov 6, 2021
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How can the $30,000 price for N2 possibly make sense compared to the $18,500 price for N3? Why would anyone pay 62% more for a node with at most 30% lower power or 15% higher performance?
AI chips are running into reticle limit and any improvement to squeeze more performance in the same area will be worth it because they can sell for a much higher price. Others will just have to wait until price becomes more affordable.
 
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