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I think your simplifications could change the logic here. Chrysler does not directly buy from TSMC, they buy from i.e. TI, Renesas, Microchip, NXP, ... Many o

I think your simplifications could change the logic here. Chrysler does not directly buy from TSMC, they buy from i.e. TI, Renesas, Microchip, NXP, ... Many of those companies do still have fabs, and even if not, they are not competing with Nvidia. They are producing on the old, old fabs, at 40, even 80nm. We would need better numbers on where these microcontrollers are fabbed to be able to tell how this interferes with i.e. Nvidia and Apple on TSMC 5nm.

Plasmoid2000ad 6y ago
I think there is also a substrate shortage https://www.semi.org/en/blogs/business-markets/the-substrate-crisis-deepens https://www.semi.org/en/blogs/business-markets/the-substrate... And an Air Freight shortage even if you do pay 10x to jump the production queue https://www.wsj.com/articles/snarled-supply-chain-trips-up-small-businesses-11618997400 https://www.wsj.com/articles/snarled-supply-chain-trips-up-s... I'm not even sure it's strictly speaking still true that automotive only uses outdated fabs. Tesla seems to have disrupted the use of low-end chips at least in high end cars, like Jaguar Land Rover.
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  I think they have a pretty wide spectrum - your ABS controller will probably be on older node than the processor for the entertainment system.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    Change "probably" to "definitely" and I'm with you. Automotive chips need to be a lot more reliable than a PS5 GPU, and that kind of reliability takes time to test and prove. Not to mention that automakers try not to change parts unnecessarily because their economies of scale are only as useful as their ability to use one component across several models and years. If you care little about thermal efficiency and power consumption, and you're not doing extremely abstract computations, there's no reason whatsoever to spend tons of money on a smaller lithography. I was looking into this recently, and the price difference between some of the equipment involved is around two orders of magnitude from the leading edge to the trailing edge.
baybal2 6y ago
Not even 80nm. Most stuff in that space is 130nm+, some extremely old, but still produced ICs from early nineties are on 300nm+ for use on equally old automotive parts.

Plasmoid2000ad 6y ago

I think there is also a substrate shortage https://www.semi.org/en/blogs/business-markets/the-substrate-crisis-deepens https://www.semi.org/en/blogs/business-markets/the-substrate... And an Air Freight shortage even if you do pay 10x to jump the production queue https://www.wsj.com/articles/snarled-supply-chain-trips-up-small-businesses-11618997400 https://www.wsj.com/articles/snarled-supply-chain-trips-up-s... I'm not even sure it's strictly speaking still true that automotive only uses outdated fabs. Tesla seems to have disrupted the use of low-end chips at least in high end cars, like Jaguar Land Rover.

turbinerneiter 6y ago
I think they have a pretty wide spectrum - your ABS controller will probably be on older node than the processor for the entertainment system.
- totalZero 6y ago
  Change "probably" to "definitely" and I'm with you. Automotive chips need to be a lot more reliable than a PS5 GPU, and that kind of reliability takes time to test and prove. Not to mention that automakers try not to change parts unnecessarily because their economies of scale are only as useful as their ability to use one component across several models and years. If you care little about thermal efficiency and power consumption, and you're not doing extremely abstract computations, there's no reason whatsoever to spend tons of money on a smaller lithography. I was looking into this recently, and the price difference between some of the equipment involved is around two orders of magnitude from the leading edge to the trailing edge.

baybal2 6y ago

Not even 80nm. Most stuff in that space is 130nm+, some extremely old, but still produced ICs from early nineties are on 300nm+ for use on equally old automotive parts.