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Intel outsources Core i3 to TSMC's 5nm process
- buryat 6y agodoes TSMC have enough 5nm capacity?
- uncledave 6y agoBased on the fact there is contention between Apple, Nvidia and AMD already, this will be interesting.
- the8472 6y agoSoon they will need to rebrand to The Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
- uncledave 6y agoYep. If you look at the global semiconductor industry it has been consolidating rapidly into very few organisations from day one. And that’s not even fabrication. https://fortune.com/2017/12/20/chip-mergers-broadcom-qualcomm-intel-nvidia/ https://fortune.com/2017/12/20/chip-mergers-broadcom-qualcom...
- arnaudsm 6y agoApple booked 80% of TSMC's 5nm process for 2021, so I suppose Intel's volumes won't be astronomical. https://wccftech.com/apple-secured-80-tsmc-5nm-production-capacity-2021/ https://wccftech.com/apple-secured-80-tsmc-5nm-production-ca...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zheng_qm 6y agoJust finished reading Ben Thompson's Intel Problems, and I see this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Jonnax 6y ago"The Core i3 move to a 5nm process is set to be followed by mid-range and high-end CPUs being produced for Intel by TSMC on a 3nm process in 2H22." So Intel becoming Fabless is a matter of time?
- bayindirh 6y agoI don't think so. They have a lot of things to produce in their fabs. Optane, Chipsets, NAND (if they still produce it), sensors, FPGAs, Ethernet Controllers, etc. They're considering it as an interim solution IMHO. To buy time for their own processes.
- cma 6y agoIsn't it a bigger step than that, as they have to firewall the design team with access to confidential TSMC info now? If they got another process online in 2 years they'd have to have a different team on it or wait another two years or so.
- QuesnayJr 6y agoI find it surprising that TSMC is going along with it, just because I would think it's hard to be sure some confidential information wouldn't leak. Unless this kind of institutional firewall works better than I think.
- avs733 6y agoIf I were to speculate, I would say that tsmc has a diversified enough customer base AND doesn’t see intel as a contract fab competitor. I would imagine if roles were reversed there would be a whole lot more concern.
- mkr-hn 6y agoTSMC could hand Intel everything they know and it wouldn't do them a bit of good before it's no longer relevant. Raw knowledge won't buy machines, train people to maintain them, build factories, tune the manufacturing processes, or make relationships with design partners. By the time Intel gets something running with something they pick up and starts thinking about making deals, TSMC will be off profiting from another breakthrough.
- bicolao 6y agoAt this point, what stops TSMC from jacking up the price on future contracts? Can Samsung do it?
- amelius 6y agoYes, they should charge Apple 30% of their revenue. Also, they should insist to change "Made in China, designed in California" into "Made in China, High-tech from Taiwan, rest of the design from California". If they don't comply, Apple should be thrown out of the FabStore.
- f00zz 6y agoFor real this time? A few months ago there were news of Intel outsourcing to TSMC that turned out to be fake.
- superjan 6y agoCan anyone explain why they’d start with the low end i3?
- drinkcocacola 6y agoRisk. Outsourcing all the manufacturing process has several a lot of uncertainty that they need to start figuring out. By the time they decide to manufacture their flagship chips, all the uncertainty will be already in the past lowering a lot the risk. It is better to screw it up with low-end, cheaper chips, than with the ones that represents the brand (high-end)
- eyesee 6y agoAlso vanity. It's a bad look if Intel's top-end chips aren't made by Intel.
- Narishma 6y agoI think i3 is mid-range. Low-end would be Pentium and Celeron.
- jarym 6y agoIf you can't beat them... join them. Unfortunately, instead of Intel beefing up their manufacturing business it looks like they want to focus on design. In my opinion, Intel will not be able to lead on design alone. Not with Apple, Nvidia, ARM, AMD all very competent on design currently.
- samfisher83 6y agoIntel makes more revenue and profits than all the companies you have listed combined except apple.
- varispeed 6y agoI was looking into TSMC worth and found that they had a patent war with Global Foundries, which resolved: "On 29 October 2019, TSMC and GlobalFoundries announced a resolution to the dispute. The companies agreed to a new life-of-patents cross-license for all of their existing semiconductor patents as well as new patents to be filed by the companies in the next ten years". Isn't this some form of a loophole to fix the market?
- nolok 6y agoGlobal Foundries was born from AMD splitting it out, and AMD learned through battle how to stop the giant and his patents from crushing you (or worse, keeping you out) by having your own critical patents important enough to force a cross licensing deal. I guess this is just a remake of x86/amd64 for them.
- sct202 6y agoSomeone has to fund Global Foundries with billions of dollars to plan and build out facilities, and that doesn't include the risk that they run into difficulties like Intel with scaling up. TSMC is reportedly spending $28b on capex this year, while GF is planning on spending $1.4b.
- httpz 6y agoI looked up Global Foundries and they're 100% owned by the Abu Dhabi state wealth fund. So it might not be too difficult.
- baybal2 6y agoAgain, there is no official announcements, only a Trendforce article.
- totalZero 6y agoThat is an important observation, but also it is worth noting that Intel reports earnings tomorrow (ie, they're in a quiet period) with the CEO role changing hands in less than four weeks, so presumably they would announce this move with the earnings report (or address it on the investor call) if true.
- baybal2 6y agoWhat some accounting paper has to do with that?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- totalZero 6y agoNot sure I understand your question. Between the end of a quarter and the announcement of that quarter's results, US public companies don't generally make major announcements outside of scheduled events (earnings call, press conference, industry showcase, etc). Even more so if there is uncertainty around the company's valuation -- ie, a leadership change.
- baybal2 6y agoWhy don't they? Tying business decision to how some accounting is done doesn't make sense.
- bluGill 6y agoLegal concerns around insider trading. People in the know of the company are reviewing the accountant reports. If there is a surprise they can trade on that and make a lot of money. It is easy to guess what will happen to stock prices if you real results are off from what everyone expects.
- m00dy 6y agoTSMC is becoming more strategic every single day.
- jakobov 6y agoAlso ASML
- vimy 6y agoAnd by proxy it makes Taiwan more strategic. Control Taiwan, control the worlds chip supply.
- sq_ 6y agoDoubt Taiwan is unhappy about that. The more TSMC provides the world with compute, the more incentive the US and other countries have to keep the island out of China’s hands.
- lcnmrn 6y agoTech world needs a TSMC competitor.
- dingaling 6y agoSeems like a great opportunity for a post-Brexit UK. Invest a few dozen billions in establishing a nationalised fab. They have the money, skillset and reputation to be a contender.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago1. Nationalized means poorly run. Effective companies emerge through competition amongst many companies, and are guided by profit-motivated shareholders, not barely invested and highly distracted politicians. 2. A semiconductor manufacturer needs to be based in a region with a substantial semiconductor supply chain to be successful, and for the UK to develop such a supply chain, it needs a broad-based shift that makes it less-social-democratic/more-capital-friendly, i.e. a more performance oriented economy.
- jonplackett 6y agoWeird they wouldn't put their high performance chips on 5nm first. Surely those have the most to gain? No-one's looking that carefully at Core i3 performance right? And if it does make a big difference, couldn't they and up with i3s being faster than their own i5s? Which would be a bit embarrassing.
- codercotton 6y agoPerhaps they're going for efficiency.
- skohan 6y agoCould it be partially motivated by competition? Maybe they are less concerned with performance, and just want to eat up TSMC capacity which would be used by competitors
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cheph 6y agoAs far as I understand, the 5nm process will yield lower power consumption[1]. As the i3 is on the lower end of power consumption this may be enough to make it viable for applications that it would not be viable for otherwise. While their powerful CPUs are fast enough (if you look at competitors) and the power requirements there is already so high that the reduced power consumption from the 5nm process won't make them that much more attractive. Not sure though, just guessing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#Commercialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#Commercialization EDIT: Actually there are i9 chips with same TDP as i3 [2]. I would think that the i3 still sells more units and is lower cost, so maybe a lower power i3 will be more attractive to OEMs than a lower power i7 or i9. [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Lake_(microprocessor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Lake_(microprocessor)
- cactus2093 6y agoWell the Apple m1 machines are fast and have incredibly low power consumption so maybe they’re trying to make their i3 compete with that? Going to be interesting though, the higher tier Apple silicon machines will probably be shipping before any of these i3 chips so intel will likely be playing catch-up for years at least.
- farseer 6y agoWell I guess, now would be a good time for the CCP to mobilize for a sea invasion. Easily defused by letting SMIC breathe some fresh ASML.. I meant air.
- jcstryker 6y agoFeels like we are quickly centralizing consumer chip fabrication into a single company. I guess the barrier for entry is so high and TSMC is just so far ahead.
- MrStonedOne 6y agoConsumer high end cpu fabrication* intel's fabs still work for printing just about anything besides high end current gen shit.
- moomin 6y agoIn the 90s, it was Intel that were so far ahead. And the barrier of entry was sky-high then. From that perspective this story is amazing.
- Symmetry 6y agoIn the 90s there were dozens of leading edge fabs. But while the barriers were high back then the capital investment needed to get into the next node has gone up exponentially, about 15% each node, since then doubling every 5 years. It took less than $1 billion to get in the game back then but over $20 billion now.
- segfaultbuserr 6y agoRock's law, the inverse of Moore's Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law
- qeternity 6y agoIt's not clear whether this is cause or effect. The insatiable demand for silicon fabbing has arguably made a $20B plant today more economical than a $1B plant 25 years ago.
- whalesalad 6y agoMakes you wonder what the hell they’ve been actually doing this whole time. Just pumping out more of the same and becoming obsolete.
- tannhaeuser 6y agoIs there a connection to the global shortage of semiconductors having already caused car manufacturing plants to shut down, in the sense that Intel re-purposes their existing fabs to make money in these demand-driven markets? Read an interview with GF's CEO just this week where he says their older (22nm, 45nm) processes see full capacity right now.
- baybal2 6y agoNo, there aren't any on supply side. It's just overwhelming demand for every kind of ICs across the industry. From 200mm fabs to mid-tier to cutting edge. Electronics, and semiconductor industries just had the best year on record. It seems just everything electronic related saw huge sales.
- rvba 6y agoLots of (cheap) computers bought by those staying at home.
- totalZero 6y agoEven the cheapest retail computers aren't running on processors with 22nm microarchitecture. The legacy semiconductor demand isn't coming from CPU/GPU for PC, servers, or mobile. It's coming from other applications and industries (automakers especially).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kesor 6y agoInstead of being the ones who other vendors outsource their fabs to ... intel disappears into oblivion. Will there be an intel in a couple of years? Maybe not.
- andy_ppp 6y agoMy guess would be this is just a test to start ramping up on the high end... My guess is takes a lot of work to move manufacturing processes and get good yields. There is zero point in moving a midrange part like the Core i3 to 5nm when you want the performance improvements at the highest end.
- websg-x 6y agohttps://www.trendforce.com.tw/research/download/RP210112CQ https://www.trendforce.com.tw/research/download/RP210112CQ The report is all speculation, not some credible source leak. And the original report was released on 01/12 before Intel appoints Pat Gelsinger as new CEO. So even if the report speculated correctly, which is unlikely, the circumstance already changed.
- josalhor 6y agoI made the same mistake just a few days ago. I believed the TrendForce article was reporting confirmed news. Your link redirects me to a Chinese webpage. I think this article may be more approachable: http://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20210113-10651.html http://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20210113-10651.ht...
- dmix 6y agoSo the OP’s articles source is a blog post which cites its own ‘research’ and little else. I guess it comes down to how much we can trust Trendforce... otherwise it’s pretty much still speculation at this point.
- ksec 6y agoThe is why you keep bumping into people who has all the wrong assumption about everything with Intel, Fab, TSMC topics. News Sources keep bumping out crap. And they never go back to correct their original reporting. And most people simply believe what they read. General Reminder, any News Source coming from Taiwan on TSMC has an interest of pumping up Stock Price.
- skylanh 6y agoCan or should the headline of this HN post be updated to include (rumour) or (speculation) or (unconfirmed)?
- cbozeman 6y agoThe only problem with this, is that its fairly well-known by industry insiders that Apple has TSMC's entire 5nm production locked up for a significant portion of this year, maybe even the entire year. M1 is just the beginning. New Axx chips are going 5nm too. I would trust Charlie over at SemiAccurate before I trust TrendForce. I'm not saying this isn't true or accurate, I'm saying that Apple's manufacturing demands are enormous just for iPhone / iPad chips, and now M1 has invigorated demand for desktop / laptop Mac products, at least amongst nerdier types like us, but wherever we go, the mainstream inevitably follows. Once "normal" people start using MacBook Pros and realize they now have 2-4 day battery life (or even longer for light users), then its only a matter of time until demand rises. I think Apple has anticipated this to some degree. Not to mention, 2021 is supposed to be the Year of the Mx iMac / Mac Pro. Ultimately, this is just a terrible time to be Intel. They're at least 2-3 years away from any worthwhile new product on their own nodes. 10nm is still a shitshow and 7nm isn't faring much better.
- MangoCoffee 6y ago50 yrs of Intel leadership is a tell on how we got here. Intel went from engineer lead company to... https://www.chiphistory.org/intel-ceo-history https://www.chiphistory.org/intel-ceo-history hopefully with a new engineer CEO, he can turn intel around like what Lisa Su did.
- api 6y agoMicrocosm of America...
- mensetmanusman 6y agoI wonder if it was the ‘wasp-saviour’ concept. “I’m rich and went to an Ivy, I know that engineers are just as effective when we put the building machines in Asia and we save on tax money! I get a bonus to send my kids to private school too, this is great!”
- NonEUCitizen 6y agoIn this case, the problem is that Intel did not use Asian (specifically, Taiwanese) fabs for its most advanced chips.
- api 6y agoSomeone I knew who went to Harvard Business School had a cynical take like this: the whole system is basically set up to ensure high-paying jobs for the children of the rich and political elite... regardless of whether they are truly qualified. I don't know if the elite university name brand bias had anything to do with Intel's story but it is a major anti-pattern in American institutions. Don't get me wrong... these are very good schools. It just doesn't follow that all people who went to Harvard are better than all people who went to some state school.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoWhen I was in college it became very apparent what the fraternity and sorority system was- a way for the elite and upper class to ensure that their children met other rich children and kept their money and power incestuously consolidated. Kids and hearts don’t care about class, the only way they can ensure a union is make it where pretty much the only people the kids meet are other elites and 1%.
- EE84M3i 6y agoRealistically, how easy is it for Intel to switch like this? Is there really some industry standard interchange format they can use to ship their i3 design off to a different fab? I would have expected them to use proprietary formats from top to bottom.
- londons_explore 6y agoAt a high level, Verilog, a widely used hardware description language, is portable to almost any fab. There will be all kinds of layouts for specific subcomponents which are harder to move between providers, but I would guess that the move from 14nm Intel to 5nm TSMC will more than outweigh all the layout based optimizations.
- gchadwick 6y agoWhilst you can easily point your synthesis tool at a new cell library (this is the tool that takes the hardware description in a language like Verilog and produces a circuit that implements it) there is significant back-end work in getting the best out of any library. Intel will probably have to rework their layouts, deal with new memory compilers that have produce memories with different characteristics and adapt memory interfaces that what they need. Their implementation engineers will take time to understand all of the new design rules, quirks and best optimisation strategies that come with an entirely new library (given this is an entirely different fab there could be significant differences). I suspect that's why they're going for Core i3 first, they can get away without lots of detailed work and optimisation to really push the process. A straight-forward (ish) port what you've got and see how it goes will be good enough and will give their implementation engineers experience with the new library that they can then use to work on the higher end.
- universal_sinc 6y agoIt's not as bad as you think. From a high-level: Modern Synthesis tools turn your RTL code (which is coded in an HDL or Hardware Description Language) into gates, and then map them to a library of "Standard Cells". These foundry-specific cells are physical plans for an AND, OR, XOR, gates, flip-flops, etc. Once the code is mapped to these cells they are run through a Place&Route tool, which lays out all the mapped standard cells onto a plane, and then wires them together in 3D following a set of design rules from whatever foundry you are using. Finally after verifying the physical properties of the output design, you ship it to your foundry using a industry standard format called "GDS2" which is basically a series of 2D layers for turning into actual lithography masks. Doing this process (commonly called "RTL to GDS2") is non-trivial, but could be done to target a new foundry in <6 months. Now, Intel is known to use some custom layout methods rather than this Synthesized flow I've described, but that's pretty out of vogue and is a vestige of their early days.
- ianai 6y agoDidn't Apple recently book all of TSMC's production for their AS processors? How does this not conflict? Edit-ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24530328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24530328
- NonEUCitizen 6y agoFor 2021, Apple booked 80% of 5nm, per: https://digital-overload.com/2020/12/22/apple-buys-80-of-5nm-production-from-tsmc-by-2021/ https://digital-overload.com/2020/12/22/apple-buys-80-of-5nm... TSMC is also continually building new fabs. And this whole TrendForce report is unconfirmed.
- nikbackm 6y agoSeems like bad news for AMD.
- PedroBatista 6y agoThis makes little sense if any at all. Why would Intel pay top dollar for 5nm and sell cheap Core i3 CPUs? Is TSMC even receptive to "help" Intel on those terms?
- totalZero 6y agoIf this deal is real, It makes a ton of sense. TSMC gets another bidder for its 5nm fab, which affects their pricing power versus bigger 5nm clients. In other words, TSMC makes more money both through increased fab utilization and through price elasticity of demand, while Intel gets to squeeze the gross margins of AMD and Apple.
- cnst 6y agoIt makes even less sense when you consider that all these i3/i5/i7/whatever designations are just marketing ploys that don't actually mean anything. I have a number of computers with Intel processors of varying generations. I know by heart how many cores and threads each one has. I couldn't care less whether any given one is an i3/i5/i7 -- only people who have little clue about processors care about those brand name designations intended to command a higher price for about the same performance.
- agloeregrets 6y agoI think this makes sense in the format that Intel may make 5nm i3 CPUs branded as something else, the timeline for these chips is way far off though, 2022 at least. The M1X ravaging will have already happened to the high-spec SKU industry. Intel needs a response framed as 'we are there at that level'. That should be an i3-like (in design, not name) ultra low power but clocked to the moon CPU. Possibly breaking 5Ghz by a LOT.
- dudeinjapan 6y agoClayton Christensen is rolling in his grave. R.I.P. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpkoCZ4vBSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpkoCZ4vBSI
- Grimm1 6y agoConsidering the doubts already at the top of this thread and that I have a distinct memory, though I'll be damned if I can remember where I read it, that TSMC would generally not work with Intel because they prefer long term partners not ones who are using them strategically in the short term and since they have their pick of partners they didn't feel any pressure to work with Intel either. I'm not sure I trust this report yet.
- random5634 6y agoHow is intel getting all this capacity from the other players (AMD / Apple?)? That is some fantastic negotiation! I thought apple made capital commits to allow factory build outs on leading nodes so they had first dibs on capacity. Amazing to hear that Intel is getting to take over the 5nm and future production from Apple / AMD. Not too long ago they were a fab competitor, now TSMC rolls out the welcome mat!
- renewiltord 6y agoIntel has outsourced to TSMC for a while now. So not a big surprise.
- pkulak 6y agoWould it be internationally allowed for the US government to step in with billions in loans to Intel to get their act together? Slowly losing the last fab company left in NA is so incredibly depressing.
- echelon 6y agoIsn't this what our defense budget is for? We should absolutely pour money into Intel.
- neltnerb 6y agoOr a non-profit foundry that serves every semiconductor company in the US. Intel is welcome to help...
- wffurr 6y agoOn the condition that Intel spin off their foundry business ala GlobalFoundries.
- neltnerb 6y agoI think there are clearly good reasons to have a regional state of the art foundry available to all comers. It seems likely to be the equivalent of a national lab in terms of accelerating R&D even if they charge a modest profit. I think having Intel involved would be fine, as long as yeah it was spun off and didn't discriminate between customers.
- cl0ckt0wer 6y agoThey have plenty of money. They don't have good management.
- dhnajsjdnd 6y agoIs money really the problem for Intel? The world is awash with capital. Intel’s bonds are yielding 3-4%, so they can easily raise more.
- stunt 6y agoTSMC has to scale up and that's a good news for the ASML.