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

Page 166 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

DisEnchantment

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2017
1,773
6,749
136
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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


FEEL FREE TO CREATE A NEW THREAD FOR 2025+ OUTLOOK, I WILL LINK IT HERE
 
Last edited:

LightningZ71

Platinum Member
Mar 10, 2017
2,077
2,525
136
Even though RDNA4 offers improved memory utilization efficiency over RDNA3.5, it's not enough of an improvement over it to warrant responding silicon without increased memory bandwidth. The increased RT capabilities still need more bandwidth, and increasing iGPU throughput without matching it with notable additional bandwidth is futile.

From what little we know, Medusa is retaining the socket from Strix Halo, meaning that, at best, you might see a minor bump in RAM speeds. There's no point in doing much more than taking advantage of refined production to improve speed bins for the iGPU.
 

RTX

Member
Nov 5, 2020
156
115
116

NostaSeronx

Diamond Member
Sep 18, 2011
3,800
1,283
136
Go go Globalfoundries?!? Also I didn't know ST Micro was involved in FD-SOI as well. Interesting. edit: or if I did know, I just forgot lol
ST-Microelectronics is the one that fixed ETSOI/FDSOI to UTBB FDSOI. The main reason no one went FDSOI is because of issues of Thick BOX slowing down scaling.

Is it this? I forget which thing was the actual reason thick box was actually kicked out.

GlobalFoundries 22FDX = 22nm/20nm 80-nm BEOL and 14nm FDSOI (ST)
GlobalFoundries 12FDX (old) = 7nm 56-nm BEOL and 14nm++ FDSOI (ST) /// 20nm Leff shared with 22FDX
GlobalFoundries 12FDX (new) = 7nm 56-nm BEOL and 10nm FDSOI (ST) /// should have a shrink and no longer be shared with 22FDX, but allows them to share it with future nodes. New Leff can be used down 3nm FDSOI.

Maximum density of FDSOI's CPP = Leff * 3.2, cost scaling Mx and CPP is the only thing slowing down FDSOI currently. Since, GlobalFoundries doesn't want FDSOI cost to equal FinFET cost.
 
Last edited:
Reactions: RTX

Gideon

Golden Member
Nov 27, 2007
1,983
4,905
136
OK; someone presumably leaked Intel 18A design rules:


According to my friend who work for Intel, below list the Intel 18A dimension:

Gate pitch is 50nm

M0 is 30nm

M1 is 50nm

M2 is 32nm

Standard cell height 160nm

SRAM bitcell area 0.021

If these are accurate it has higher density than N5 but the design rules are pretty close to it. So much for "a year earlier and better in every way than TSCM N2" that certain people hyped up around here.

On "a totally unrelated note", it seems @SiliconFly has left these forums and is now Hyping 18A up non stop on twitter (also in the very same thread).

The hype somehow seems even stronger than it was here
 

511

Golden Member
Jul 12, 2024
1,740
1,602
106
OK; someone presumably leaked Intel 18A design rules:




If these are accurate it has higher density than N5 but the design rules are pretty close to it. So much for "a year earlier and better in every way than TSCM N2" that certain people hyped up around here.

On "a totally unrelated note", it seems @SiliconFly has left these forums and is now Hyping 18A up non stop on twitter (also in the very same thread).

The hype somehow seems even stronger than it was here
So these are design rules leaked but the geometry is different the same way as Pre-Finfet and Post-Finfet are not comparable you can't compare N5 Finfet with 18A in design rules PPA is the only comparison point for these.
 
Reactions: Gideon

511

Golden Member
Jul 12, 2024
1,740
1,602
106
From semiwiki forum:

You cannot determine how your design will perform using conference papers, PowerPoint slides, or press releases. That is what the PDK is for. The people I know that have evaluated the PDKs have said that Intel 18A is comparable to TSMC N2 in PPA. They have also said that the TSMC N2 PDK is much better than 18A. I know the Intel 18A PDK recently
Most Likely a HPC Design like a CPU Core/ASIC.

 
Last edited:

mikegg

Golden Member
Jan 30, 2010
1,884
501
136

Doug S

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2020
3,081
5,316
136
The yields on N2 must be good, everyone(excluding NV) is using N2 next year.

What happened to the rumors that Nvidia was prepaying for N2 and would be at the front of the line along with Apple? That can't be true and it also be true that Nvidia isn't shipping anything N2 based until 2027.

Maybe someone just assumed that with Nvidia having all that cash that they'd deploy it in a similar way as Apple, rather than reporting that based on some actual substance?
 
Reactions: SpudLobby

Ghostsonplanets

Senior member
Mar 1, 2024
773
1,227
96
What happened to the rumors that Nvidia was prepaying for N2 and would be at the front of the line along with Apple? That can't be true and it also be true that Nvidia isn't shipping anything N2 based until 2027.

Maybe someone just assumed that with Nvidia having all that cash that they'd deploy it in a similar way as Apple, rather than reporting that based on some actual substance?
That was a thing? I thought the rumors were saying AMD Venice was N2 frontline design as Apple would take a year.
 
sale-70-410-exam    | Exam-200-125-pdf    | we-sale-70-410-exam    | hot-sale-70-410-exam    | Latest-exam-700-603-Dumps    | Dumps-98-363-exams-date    | Certs-200-125-date    | Dumps-300-075-exams-date    | hot-sale-book-C8010-726-book    | Hot-Sale-200-310-Exam    | Exam-Description-200-310-dumps?    | hot-sale-book-200-125-book    | Latest-Updated-300-209-Exam    | Dumps-210-260-exams-date    | Download-200-125-Exam-PDF    | Exam-Description-300-101-dumps    | Certs-300-101-date    | Hot-Sale-300-075-Exam    | Latest-exam-200-125-Dumps    | Exam-Description-200-125-dumps    | Latest-Updated-300-075-Exam    | hot-sale-book-210-260-book    | Dumps-200-901-exams-date    | Certs-200-901-date    | Latest-exam-1Z0-062-Dumps    | Hot-Sale-1Z0-062-Exam    | Certs-CSSLP-date    | 100%-Pass-70-383-Exams    | Latest-JN0-360-real-exam-questions    | 100%-Pass-4A0-100-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-300-135-exams-date    | Passed-200-105-Tech-Exams    | Latest-Updated-200-310-Exam    | Download-300-070-Exam-PDF    | Hot-Sale-JN0-360-Exam    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Exams    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-JN0-360-exams-date    | Exam-Description-1Z0-876-dumps    | Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps    | Dumps-HPE0-Y53-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-HPE0-Y53-Exam    | 100%-Pass-HPE0-Y53-Real-Exam-Questions    | Pass-4A0-100-Exam    | Latest-4A0-100-Questions    | Dumps-98-365-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-98-365-Exam    | 100%-Pass-VCS-254-Exams    | 2017-Latest-VCS-273-Exam    | Dumps-200-355-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-300-320-Exam    | Pass-300-101-Exam    | 100%-Pass-300-115-Exams    |
http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    | http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    |