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TSMC Starts $19.5B 3nm Fab Construction
- aritmo 7y agoThis is a big bet by TSMC. If they pull it through, and they might do, they will be ahead of competition for the next decade.
- mdorazio 7y agoI wonder what Intel's response to this will be. I haven't heard any news about them getting in the 3nm game within the next 2 years.
- ibatindev 7y ago10nm++++++++ of course.
- wyxuan 7y agoThey're still on 14 nm ++
- nBurn 7y agoWhat about Cannon Lake and Ice Lake then? Both of those lines are supposed to be 10 nm. Cannon Lake had a fumbled release last year and Ice Lake processors started shipping with some newer computers last month. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Lake_(microarchitecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Lake_(microarchitecture... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Lake_(microprocessor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Lake_(microprocessor)
- dispat0r 7y agoYou are correct. Intel is on 14nm+++ for Desktop/Server/Mobile but there are some Ice lake mobile chips at 10nm.
- jjoonathan 7y agoDo we know the story of what happened in the Intel 10nm debacle? I know that they went from being a generation ahead of everyone to a generation behind TSMC, but that seems like a bigger misstep than just fumbling a single node.
- rrss 7y agoI've heard rumors that 10nm was late and management at Intel put a lot of pressure on the process teams, which led to the "old guard" quitting and the younger generation left fumbling with unusable yields. But they're only rumors - it's entirely possible that's not the case.
- jjoonathan 7y agoThe only thing I have to go on is the fact that the semiconductor rumor mill absolutely called this one. Years ago, when intel was publicly announcing that 10nm would ship in a few months, the rumor mill said that not only would it not ship in a few months, it would not ship at all for the foreseeable future, up to the point of missing the entire 10nm node. That's exactly what happened. The scenario you described would be 100% consistent with those observations. I still look forward to the inside scoop because, in accordance with your suspicions, I suspect there's a juicy case study in there about self-deluded "beatings will continue until morale improves" style management felling an industry titan, or at least stumbling it badly.
- wyxuan 7y agoI believe that they were going to skip 10 nm and go to 7 nm, although they are already on the 10 nm process at certain foundries.
- api 7y agoIf TSMC does this and Intel doesn't then by proxy AMD will absolutely destroy Intel on every metric.
- NanoCoaster 7y agoCan anyone explain to me what "3nm" means in practice nowadays? My impressions was that the "x nm" was originally meant to mean "minimnum distance between seperate components", but I don't actually know if this is the correct definition. But I also heard that they don't really have a real meaning nowadays, serving more as categorizing and marketing terms instead of actually meaning anything regarding the physical layout of the chips. So, what is it actually supposed to mean? And how does 3nm correspond to the real, physical layout of the chips? EDIT: Thanks for all the answers, I'll be sure to read through the links. Very interesting stuff :)
- ajb 7y agoI thought the original meaning was 'minimum design dimension'. IE, of all the dimensions in the spec, whichever is smallest. Which could be the minimum distance between components, or not. However I understand it's now basically a marketing term, and basically doesn't correspond to anything.
- beefman 7y agoBrowsing WikiChip is advisable here https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node The short answer is that Intel is the only foundry that even tries to keep its "technology node" in step with feature size. I give them a lot of credit for it because technology node 'deflation' by their competitors has been very successful in misleading consumers and even tech-savvy people.
- qeternity 7y agoThanks for the link. Interesting in this war that they have taken the high route, whereas in the gigahertz wars, AMD had to creatively name their components so that consumers knew which Intel parts they were roughly comparable to.
- dghughes 7y agoIt was so hard back in the late 1990s to overcome the indoctrination we all went through. I built an AMD Athlon system but it took a lot of work and self-searching to make that leap. It was like leaving a cult.
- ifthenelseend 7y agoMeanwhile Intel is working on 14++++++++nm technology that improves performance by 0.000000001% This will be an easy game for AMD and TSMC...