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If TSMCs march continues, how long will it be before Intel is forced to use them for all their performance chips? Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? An

If TSMCs march continues, how long will it be before Intel is forced to use them for all their performance chips? Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? And if that happens, how long will it be, with much less competition, for TSMC to get sloppy like Intel did, and everything stagnate again.

christkv 6y ago
TSMC seems like the number one security guarantee for Taiwan.
- mamon 6y ago
  How many American soldiers station in Taiwan? And more importantly: how many nukes? Since the answer to both is "zero" TSMC actually decreases Taiwan's security - it gives China a strong incentive to attack, with zero means to prevent it on US side.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >it gives China a strong incentive to attack That can be mitigated by planting bombs at the TMSC factory. If china attacks, they'll get end up with a rubble.
    - mamon 6y ago
      This mitigates only half of the problem - yes, China won't be able to use the factory for themselves, but if you take a closer look at the list of the largest TSMC customers from the article those are mostly American companies. Destroying TSMC factory would hurt the US disproportionately more than it would China. Which might matter in the current China-US trade war. Also "planting bombs at the factory" scenario is one of the reasons why all armies in the world have spies and special forces - you send your special ops soldiers before your main attack to take control of the facility and prevent initiating the self-destruction protocol. I'm not saying it always works, but China can take a calculated risk here, since they win either way.
      - Traster 6y ago
        If China attacks Taiwan, those American customers are going to lose TSMC as a supplier either way.
      - wwtrv 6y ago
        And what would China win exactly? Even if they somehow miraculously manage to keep TSMC up and running they would not be able to export anything produced there to other countries and permanently loose access to all western IP. And the sanctions from US and other countries would massively outweigh any perceived economic benefits from invading Taiwan.
        lazide 6y ago
        Any scenario where China invades Taiwan, global sanctions and embargoes are already happening. Blowing up the wests high end chip fab capacity for a minimum of 2-3 years at that point is a bonus.
    - qwertox 6y ago
      That would freeze the car and smartphone production worldwide. No country would like to see this.
      - gruez 6y ago
        And why would taiwan care about worldwide car/smartphone production when the PLA is marching towards their factory?
        lazide 6y ago
        Taiwan won’t necessarily care, but intelligence agencies of every other country undoubtably would. And putting proactive mines in a facility like that would be noticed.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Rubble, yes, but people that can rebuild it also. But most importantly, it would paralyze everyone except them economically, as they are the only country that can't use TSMC.
      - wwtrv 6y ago
        Why wouldn’t those people just move to different countries? I’m sure that most countries in the west would be very happy to receive large number of highly qualified engineers for free. China can’t really close them in labour camps and expect them to be very productive... I’m sure it would paralyze everyone economically, since China would just end up with a bunch of ruined factories with no staff and no way to replace most of the machines needed for fabrication (which are made in other countries). simple replicating everything TSMC is doing in China would be several magnitudes cheaper (if you factor in the economic outfall of a military invasion)
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        lazide 6y ago
        I’m sure they are already duplicating (or attempting to) everything in China. They’d need to stop new research and development though to not always be a few (or more) steps behind. Blowing up the fab and putting all the engineers in a prison camp would do quite well at accomplishing that, no?
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        You don't need them to be productive. You just need them to give you some secrets, and then your engineers continue the rest.
      - skissane 6y ago
        > it would paralyze everyone except them economically It would cause a lot of economic damage to PRC too. If they attack Taiwan, definitely the US and its allies will retaliate. They'd likely place trade sanctions on PRC which would damage much of it export businesses. They might even consider a naval blockade of PRC.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    My (non-expert) view on this: If China attacks Taiwan (and the TSMC fabs are destroyed), everyone loses, including China. In the short term, it would probably hurt the West more, but once fabs in the West start spinning up, China would risk being embargoed from the most efficient chips, putting them far behind until they can catch up. (All the lithography machines seem to be coming from ASML in the Netherlands). This may change in 5 years or so when China has caught up more, and is less dependent on TSMC chips. And China has patience. They'll deal with Hong Kong and Xinjiang first, ensure independence, then invade.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jonplackett 6y ago
      But what if they attack, or otherwise more subtly take control of Taiwan, and the fabs are not destroyed. I'm sure that would be their preference.
      - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
        Demolition charges are said to be in place to ensure this doesn't happen.
  - reincarnate0x14 6y ago
    There are, and have been, US troops unofficially stationed in Taiwan the whole time even after the official bases were closed in the 70s. The US recently expanded the footprint of AIT, their technically-not-an-embassy facility in Taipei and built another in Kaohsiung. US personnel are present in some capacity at basically all ROC air force bases and at the over-the-horizon radar facilities used to monitor east Asia. This has been an open secret for decades, recently causing a bit of a laugh when a US serviceman was in the background of a publicity photo of president Tsai Ing-wen touring a radar installation. US policy of not deliberately provoking China over the Taiwan issue doesn't mean the US hasn't maintained a policy of nuclear deterrence over Taiwan since the Eisenhower administration. The PRC and US are well aware, and have extensively war-gamed, that a US/China military confrontation will very likely escalate to nuclear war. The US sailing a carrier or cruiser through the strait every time the PRC makes loud noises is reaffirming the status quo.
- dnautics 6y ago
  How does this change with TSMC opening a fab in arizona? (And Samsung in Austin)
  - gsnedders 6y ago
    The TSMC fab in Arizona as announced is 20k wafers/month, their total production is over a million a month. It's a tiny drop in the ocean.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      there is this announcement: https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/03/02/taiwan-semiconductor-phoenix-plant-35-billion.html https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/03/02/taiwan-s... Still relatively small, but closer to an order of magnitude than two.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Well this is pure speculation, but that branch of TSMC is going to be an American company. As it will definitely be totally dependent on its mother corporation, making problems for that mother corporation could make problems for the American company - so IMHO the USA will protect the mother corporation more than they did up until now.
    - lazide 6y ago
      The Arizona play is most certainly a concession demanded by the US gov’t. The US has a major problem with dependence on chips made elsewhere - if China started shelling Taiwan and put an embargo in place for electronics, the US would have major major issues in very short order. It isn’t JUST Chinese chips of course, but that is a pretty visible one for sure.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dnautics 6y ago
      that's my speculation too, but amended with the provision that "it will be Nationalized iff taiwan gets invaded" (kind of like what happened to Merck, during WWII).
reader_mode 6y ago
> Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? Did you read the article ? AMD is going up as a % because a lot of customers are switching to Samsung (and Huawei sanctions)
- arnaudsm 6y ago
  The fact that AMD had the best-performing CPU by a 2x factor for the past 4 years probably plays a role too.
  - theferalrobot 6y ago
    That seems at least a bit hyperbolic - AMD has pushed intel a lot in the past four years but it wasn't until the past year or so that they have potentially started outperforming Intel (depending on workload) in what is likely to be a 'who has released more recently' kind of competition for a while. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html Latest benches have AMD and Intel winning in about the same number of tests.
    - dhruvdh 6y ago
      The first graph in this article doesn't include Ryzen 5000 series processors. By their own tests later AMD has top 4 positions for both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. Intel came out with their Rocket lake line of CPUs after Ryzen 5000 and Rocket lake can't match up. Even before Ryzen 5000, anything that wasn't single-threaded Intel could never beat; and had way worse performance per watt.
      - nightski 6y ago
        Weird, it definitely includes them for me, in all six images and it's exactly like the parent said (some Intel, some AMD). Maybe you are confused because Threadripper is at the top in some above the 5000 series? AMD is killing it with the 5000 series, but it's just barely edging out Intel in these benchmarks. The whole 2x figure was a little absurd.
CodeArtisan 6y ago
>how long will it be before Intel is forced to use them for all their performance chips? One year? https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20210113-10651.html https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20210113-10651.h...
tedunangst 6y ago
TSMC will probably have a second largest customer even if their process development stagnates.
ulfw 6y ago
The sloppyness isn't an issue. Lack of competition that can keep up is. Especially in a geopolitically charged environment.
ksec 6y ago
New Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger To Host Webcast [1] About Intel’s Future On March 23rd. We will see if we have more details then. But Pat seems to be committed to the IDM model. >for TSMC to get sloppy like Intel did, and everything stagnate again. I dont see that happening any time soon. Not in this decade. Not with the current and upcoming management of TSMC. Even assuming the worst of a culture change within TSMC it will still take time to rotten to its core and time for it to manifest. Intel loses out has nothing to do with technology, but the combination of pathetic management and record making profits at the same time for years. [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16560/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger-to-host-webcast-about-intels-future-on-march-23rd https://www.anandtech.com/show/16560/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger...

christkv 6y ago

TSMC seems like the number one security guarantee for Taiwan.

mamon 6y ago
How many American soldiers station in Taiwan? And more importantly: how many nukes? Since the answer to both is "zero" TSMC actually decreases Taiwan's security - it gives China a strong incentive to attack, with zero means to prevent it on US side.
- gruez 6y ago
  >it gives China a strong incentive to attack That can be mitigated by planting bombs at the TMSC factory. If china attacks, they'll get end up with a rubble.
  - mamon 6y ago
    This mitigates only half of the problem - yes, China won't be able to use the factory for themselves, but if you take a closer look at the list of the largest TSMC customers from the article those are mostly American companies. Destroying TSMC factory would hurt the US disproportionately more than it would China. Which might matter in the current China-US trade war. Also "planting bombs at the factory" scenario is one of the reasons why all armies in the world have spies and special forces - you send your special ops soldiers before your main attack to take control of the facility and prevent initiating the self-destruction protocol. I'm not saying it always works, but China can take a calculated risk here, since they win either way.
    - Traster 6y ago
      If China attacks Taiwan, those American customers are going to lose TSMC as a supplier either way.
    - wwtrv 6y ago
      And what would China win exactly? Even if they somehow miraculously manage to keep TSMC up and running they would not be able to export anything produced there to other countries and permanently loose access to all western IP. And the sanctions from US and other countries would massively outweigh any perceived economic benefits from invading Taiwan.
      - lazide 6y ago
        Any scenario where China invades Taiwan, global sanctions and embargoes are already happening. Blowing up the wests high end chip fab capacity for a minimum of 2-3 years at that point is a bonus.
  - qwertox 6y ago
    That would freeze the car and smartphone production worldwide. No country would like to see this.
    - gruez 6y ago
      And why would taiwan care about worldwide car/smartphone production when the PLA is marching towards their factory?
      - lazide 6y ago
        Taiwan won’t necessarily care, but intelligence agencies of every other country undoubtably would. And putting proactive mines in a facility like that would be noticed.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Rubble, yes, but people that can rebuild it also. But most importantly, it would paralyze everyone except them economically, as they are the only country that can't use TSMC.
    - wwtrv 6y ago
      Why wouldn’t those people just move to different countries? I’m sure that most countries in the west would be very happy to receive large number of highly qualified engineers for free. China can’t really close them in labour camps and expect them to be very productive... I’m sure it would paralyze everyone economically, since China would just end up with a bunch of ruined factories with no staff and no way to replace most of the machines needed for fabrication (which are made in other countries). simple replicating everything TSMC is doing in China would be several magnitudes cheaper (if you factor in the economic outfall of a military invasion)
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - lazide 6y ago
        I’m sure they are already duplicating (or attempting to) everything in China. They’d need to stop new research and development though to not always be a few (or more) steps behind. Blowing up the fab and putting all the engineers in a prison camp would do quite well at accomplishing that, no?
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        You don't need them to be productive. You just need them to give you some secrets, and then your engineers continue the rest.
    - skissane 6y ago
      > it would paralyze everyone except them economically It would cause a lot of economic damage to PRC too. If they attack Taiwan, definitely the US and its allies will retaliate. They'd likely place trade sanctions on PRC which would damage much of it export businesses. They might even consider a naval blockade of PRC.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  My (non-expert) view on this: If China attacks Taiwan (and the TSMC fabs are destroyed), everyone loses, including China. In the short term, it would probably hurt the West more, but once fabs in the West start spinning up, China would risk being embargoed from the most efficient chips, putting them far behind until they can catch up. (All the lithography machines seem to be coming from ASML in the Netherlands). This may change in 5 years or so when China has caught up more, and is less dependent on TSMC chips. And China has patience. They'll deal with Hong Kong and Xinjiang first, ensure independence, then invade.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    But what if they attack, or otherwise more subtly take control of Taiwan, and the fabs are not destroyed. I'm sure that would be their preference.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
      Demolition charges are said to be in place to ensure this doesn't happen.
- reincarnate0x14 6y ago
  There are, and have been, US troops unofficially stationed in Taiwan the whole time even after the official bases were closed in the 70s. The US recently expanded the footprint of AIT, their technically-not-an-embassy facility in Taipei and built another in Kaohsiung. US personnel are present in some capacity at basically all ROC air force bases and at the over-the-horizon radar facilities used to monitor east Asia. This has been an open secret for decades, recently causing a bit of a laugh when a US serviceman was in the background of a publicity photo of president Tsai Ing-wen touring a radar installation. US policy of not deliberately provoking China over the Taiwan issue doesn't mean the US hasn't maintained a policy of nuclear deterrence over Taiwan since the Eisenhower administration. The PRC and US are well aware, and have extensively war-gamed, that a US/China military confrontation will very likely escalate to nuclear war. The US sailing a carrier or cruiser through the strait every time the PRC makes loud noises is reaffirming the status quo.
dnautics 6y ago
How does this change with TSMC opening a fab in arizona? (And Samsung in Austin)
- gsnedders 6y ago
  The TSMC fab in Arizona as announced is 20k wafers/month, their total production is over a million a month. It's a tiny drop in the ocean.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    there is this announcement: https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/03/02/taiwan-semiconductor-phoenix-plant-35-billion.html https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2021/03/02/taiwan-s... Still relatively small, but closer to an order of magnitude than two.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Well this is pure speculation, but that branch of TSMC is going to be an American company. As it will definitely be totally dependent on its mother corporation, making problems for that mother corporation could make problems for the American company - so IMHO the USA will protect the mother corporation more than they did up until now.
  - lazide 6y ago
    The Arizona play is most certainly a concession demanded by the US gov’t. The US has a major problem with dependence on chips made elsewhere - if China started shelling Taiwan and put an embargo in place for electronics, the US would have major major issues in very short order. It isn’t JUST Chinese chips of course, but that is a pretty visible one for sure.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dnautics 6y ago
    that's my speculation too, but amended with the provision that "it will be Nationalized iff taiwan gets invaded" (kind of like what happened to Merck, during WWII).

reader_mode 6y ago

> Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? Did you read the article ? AMD is going up as a % because a lot of customers are switching to Samsung (and Huawei sanctions)

arnaudsm 6y ago
The fact that AMD had the best-performing CPU by a 2x factor for the past 4 years probably plays a role too.
- theferalrobot 6y ago
  That seems at least a bit hyperbolic - AMD has pushed intel a lot in the past four years but it wasn't until the past year or so that they have potentially started outperforming Intel (depending on workload) in what is likely to be a 'who has released more recently' kind of competition for a while. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html Latest benches have AMD and Intel winning in about the same number of tests.
  - dhruvdh 6y ago
    The first graph in this article doesn't include Ryzen 5000 series processors. By their own tests later AMD has top 4 positions for both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. Intel came out with their Rocket lake line of CPUs after Ryzen 5000 and Rocket lake can't match up. Even before Ryzen 5000, anything that wasn't single-threaded Intel could never beat; and had way worse performance per watt.
    - nightski 6y ago
      Weird, it definitely includes them for me, in all six images and it's exactly like the parent said (some Intel, some AMD). Maybe you are confused because Threadripper is at the top in some above the 5000 series? AMD is killing it with the 5000 series, but it's just barely edging out Intel in these benchmarks. The whole 2x figure was a little absurd.

CodeArtisan 6y ago

>how long will it be before Intel is forced to use them for all their performance chips? One year? https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20210113-10651.html https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20210113-10651.h...

tedunangst 6y ago

TSMC will probably have a second largest customer even if their process development stagnates.

ulfw 6y ago

The sloppyness isn't an issue. Lack of competition that can keep up is. Especially in a geopolitically charged environment.

ksec 6y ago

New Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger To Host Webcast [1] About Intel’s Future On March 23rd. We will see if we have more details then. But Pat seems to be committed to the IDM model. >for TSMC to get sloppy like Intel did, and everything stagnate again. I dont see that happening any time soon. Not in this decade. Not with the current and upcoming management of TSMC. Even assuming the worst of a culture change within TSMC it will still take time to rotten to its core and time for it to manifest. Intel loses out has nothing to do with technology, but the combination of pathetic management and record making profits at the same time for years. [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16560/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger-to-host-webcast-about-intels-future-on-march-23rd https://www.anandtech.com/show/16560/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger...