There is news that Intel is the co-leading customer on the TSMC 3nm node, with Apple. Did they manage to outflank AMD on process technology? What are they going to make on this node?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Te...become-first-to-adopt-TSMC-s-latest-chip-tech
Both Intel and AMD have had their fair share of in-house FAB growing pains so they're (obviously) now both using TSMC in greater or lesser capacities to keep moving forward with goals, designs, etc.
Intel and Apple have tested, working 3nm and/or 5nm designs in place so they can commit to TSMC node scheduling. My present understanding of AMD's road map is primarily 7nm with 5nm currently in design phase so they haven't purchased 3nm/5nm node-time beyond yield & test runs (yet) but I'm sure they will.
As to what is on the nodes for Intel?..not sure but I would venture a guess it's GPU at 3nm and server/workstation/Alder Lake successor processors at 5nm. Intel stalled their 7nm node sixteen months ago to retool and improve quality/yield so I surmise 7nm production (Alder lake +) will go back to Intel foundries or has already started the move back in-house. Then they'll begin moving 5nm back in-house one they stand-up 5nm nodes and then 3nm with some products continuing to be outsourced.
I believe AMD has some additional growing pains to push through with Global Foundries but the recent shares sell announcement shows the commitment is still there. Coming from the days of unlocking their processors with a graphite pencil (weee!) and then conductive car window defroster repair ink (not so weee!), I'm confident they will get back on track.
Based on a whole lot of odd predictive posts on a lot of boards, I think AMD may be (currently) outflanked in terms of completed, tested, yielding designs being ready to go at 5nm and 3nm. 3D cache seems to be a move in response to Alder Lake but it's going to be at the cost of higher power consumption and higher temps. Same design, same 7nm node, additional cache. Relatively easy to implement. But, we don't see stacking a lot because it's difficult to get past the lower die components being insulated by whatever is on top (more heat + more power) Flat, monolithic dies are still the go-to option. AMD would need to rework and test the current 7nm Zen design to move away from stacking and they don't have the time to do that with Alder Lake around the corner.
I'm a firm believer in healthy *ethical* competition. That having been said, I believe we are going to see a near-term shift back to Intel as the performance leader in the processing space. Very eager to see what ARC has to offer and given the amount of time it's been on Intel's design roadmap, I'd bet a dollar it's going to be competitive. Same with chiplet-based GPUs from AMD. Nvidia seems to be a little more silent these days and appear to be pushing 8nm as far as they can. Interested to see where they're headed.