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

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DisEnchantment

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2017
1,687
6,243
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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.
 

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
16,094
8,106
136
Yes they did. 10nm. And their reputation still has a blow because of this.
Completely agree about the rest though. Samsung's much worse than Intel.
Yeah, but since since Intel isn't a pure foundry, they will go and throw out 90% of dice from a wafer just to get a trickle of product out the door so that they 'technically' didn't lie.

As far as Samsung, I simply do not understand what their problem is. S.Korea has gone out of it's way to help Samsung in every way they can, but on the logic side their foundry progress is just terrible. Fortunately for them, their DRAM and NAND production is top shelf.
 

H433x0n

Golden Member
Mar 15, 2023
1,073
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A bit more information on the Intel 4 process tech. Some of it is rehashed from previous documents but as far as I can tell this is the first video that goes over details on DTCO and other techniques used to achieve scaling. A bunch of interesting technical data such as using COAG (Contact Over Active Gate) to remove dummy gate, electromigration with eCU in m0-m4, public acknowledgement of number of metal layers (18), etc.

 

amrnuke

Golden Member
Apr 24, 2019
1,181
1,772
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Yeah, but since since Intel isn't a pure foundry, they will go and throw out 90% of dice from a wafer just to get a trickle of product out the door so that they 'technically' didn't lie.

As far as Samsung, I simply do not understand what their problem is. S.Korea has gone out of it's way to help Samsung in every way they can, but on the logic side their foundry progress is just terrible. Fortunately for them, their DRAM and NAND production is top shelf.
Intel could be a similar story to Samsung -- depending on what they can actually do with the $25-30 billion from the CHIPS and FABS acts.
 
Reactions: Ajay

Doug S

Platinum Member
Feb 8, 2020
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Nvidia will become number 2 next year for sure looking at their AI Chip growth.

Limited by TSMC's ability to expand their packaging capacity, and demand from other customers for that packaging. Though Nvidia could have pulled an Apple and prepaid for guaranteed capacity, they certainly have the cash for it.
 

FlameTail

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2021
3,192
1,833
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So would this mean the Snapdragon X processors will ship in sufficient volume?

One of the problems with AMD's Ryzen APUs is that they ship in scarce volumes, hence there are hardly any laptops to be found with those like Phoenix or Rembrandt, especially at reasonable prices.
 

oak8292

Member
Sep 14, 2016
88
69
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View attachment 88486

I am surprised. Qualcomm is TSMC's 2nd largest customer, even above Nvidia and AMD!
What is the source for this data, all I have seen officially from TSMC in there annual reports is there 10%+ customers, in other words Apple.

The Qualcomm data is not really that surprising. Qualcomm was the largest and only 10%+ customer of TSMCs when Apple was still at Samsung and they essentially swapped wafer supplier's with Apple. However, TSMC continued to make the Qualcomm modems for Apple products. Apple is back on Qualcomm modems since the iPhone 12 and TSMC is probably making most of those Qualcomm/Apple modems.
 

Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
5,611
8,826
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What is the source for this data, all I have seen officially from TSMC in there annual reports is there 10%+ customers, in other words Apple.

The Qualcomm data is not really that surprising. Qualcomm was the largest and only 10%+ customer of TSMCs when Apple was still at Samsung and they essentially swapped wafer supplier's with Apple. However, TSMC continued to make the Qualcomm modems for Apple products. Apple is back on Qualcomm modems since the iPhone 12 and TSMC is probably making most of those Qualcomm/Apple modems.

Image source appears to be here,
In that thread, he tags another X user as the source of data. It is based upon an analyst's estimates from each company's earnings reports. Probably not very accurate, tbh.
 
Reactions: FlameTail

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,808
11,165
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So... extrapolating from these figures, N4P -> N3E has a 5% ish performance increase.
Not only that but better power characteristics as well. Only area where N3B is winning is density, and not by all that much. Are you going to willingly skip out on +5% performance at 5% less power?
 
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