5 ms·

Which manufacturer is Tesla using for their dojo chips?

robin_reala 5y ago
TSMC.
bob1029 5y ago
Anyone ever wonder about the possibility of Tesla/Elon entering into semiconductor manufacturing? I can't imagine this thought hasn't crossed some minds in their boardroom.
- stetrain 5y ago
  Even Apple doesn't do the actual manufacturing. I'm not sure adding another product line with crazy difficult production processes would be a good idea for Tesla.
  - josephpmay 5y ago
    But Tesla likes to bring production in-house, whereas Apple outsources everything possible. It would not surprise me in the slightest if Tesla is looking to build a fab at some point in the future
    - stetrain 5y ago
      I don't think it's profitable to build a leading edge chip fab with only yourself as the customer. At least, nobody else is doing it. Even with Intel's huge sales volumes they are still trying to bring in other customers to use their fabs to share the cost. So I think getting in the fab business for Tesla would mean trying to be a direct competitor with TSMC, Intel, etc. by making chips for a large number of customers. That seems way down the list of Tesla's priorities and best uses of dropping hundreds of billions of dollars.
      - gpm 5y ago
        This was my initial reaction as well, but considering the scale of Tesla I thought I should validate it. Intel reportedly produces roughly 10 million wafers per year [1]. Roughly 70 million new cars are sold per year [2], with Tesla currently accounting for 0.5 million of those [3] with roughly 50% YOY growth numbers and a plan on continuing those for multiple years [4]. Cars/wafer is a pretty unclear number, at 5 Tesla is 1% of Intel's market (today), at 25 0.2% of Intel's market. It will take quite awhile for Tesla to hit intel's scale - but the automotive market as a whole might actually be pretty close to it if all new cars start including giant computers. [1] 884k/month * 12 months/year, from https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/top-five-chip-makers-dominate-global-wafer-capacity https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/top-five-chip-makers-domin... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car-sales-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car... [3] https://backlinko.com/tesla-stats https://backlinko.com/tesla-stats (or see [4] but then you have to add up quarters yourself) [4] https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/ZBOUYO_TSLA_Q2_2021_Update_DJCVNJ.pdf?xseo=&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22q2_2021.pdf%22 https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/ZBOUYO_TSLA_Q2_2021_Updat...
        stetrain 5y ago
        Interesting to think about, but I still don't see it making business sense for Tesla, even if they follow some crazy optimistic curve and take half the car market. There are already multiple competing companies whose sole job is to make the best fabs at high production rates. Tesla doesn't even make most of their batteries in-house, which is way more core to their business of EV manufacturing. They partner with Panasonic, LG, CATL, etc. because they are in the business of building out manufacturing capacity for battery cells.
- DSingularity 5y ago
  Surely you mean chip design and not manufacturing.
  - gpm 5y ago
    They're apparently already in chip design, so surely he means manufacturing as the potential new business line?
  - elif 5y ago
    They already do chip design. You could s/chip/battery/ and make the same incredulous statement 5 years ago Or upholstery, or charging infrastructure, or casting equipment, etc. Tesla had the capital to go as vertical as they want.
    - njarboe 5y ago
      Tesla doesn't makes their own casting equipment (yet?). They do custom order the largest presses built by Idra Group in Italy (owned by a Chinese company) though [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Press
  - bob1029 5y ago
    No - I mean manufacturing. At a certain level of demand it could make sense, especially if the classes of devices you seek to produce are heterogeneous in their engineering - aerospace vs phone vs car. The other advantage with vertical integration through the manufacturing piece is turn around time on new designs. It is a lot faster/easier to spin new test lots for speculative designs when everyone works for the same org.
- petra 5y ago
  Musk's companies win(usually, not always) by finding niches with sleepy competition and doing great engineering work there. The semi industry is really far from that.

TSMC.

Anyone ever wonder about the possibility of Tesla/Elon entering into semiconductor manufacturing? I can't imagine this thought hasn't crossed some minds in their boardroom.

stetrain 5y ago
Even Apple doesn't do the actual manufacturing. I'm not sure adding another product line with crazy difficult production processes would be a good idea for Tesla.
- josephpmay 5y ago
  But Tesla likes to bring production in-house, whereas Apple outsources everything possible. It would not surprise me in the slightest if Tesla is looking to build a fab at some point in the future
  - stetrain 5y ago
    I don't think it's profitable to build a leading edge chip fab with only yourself as the customer. At least, nobody else is doing it. Even with Intel's huge sales volumes they are still trying to bring in other customers to use their fabs to share the cost. So I think getting in the fab business for Tesla would mean trying to be a direct competitor with TSMC, Intel, etc. by making chips for a large number of customers. That seems way down the list of Tesla's priorities and best uses of dropping hundreds of billions of dollars.
    - gpm 5y ago
      This was my initial reaction as well, but considering the scale of Tesla I thought I should validate it. Intel reportedly produces roughly 10 million wafers per year [1]. Roughly 70 million new cars are sold per year [2], with Tesla currently accounting for 0.5 million of those [3] with roughly 50% YOY growth numbers and a plan on continuing those for multiple years [4]. Cars/wafer is a pretty unclear number, at 5 Tesla is 1% of Intel's market (today), at 25 0.2% of Intel's market. It will take quite awhile for Tesla to hit intel's scale - but the automotive market as a whole might actually be pretty close to it if all new cars start including giant computers. [1] 884k/month * 12 months/year, from https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/top-five-chip-makers-dominate-global-wafer-capacity https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/top-five-chip-makers-domin... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car-sales-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car... [3] https://backlinko.com/tesla-stats https://backlinko.com/tesla-stats (or see [4] but then you have to add up quarters yourself) [4] https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/ZBOUYO_TSLA_Q2_2021_Update_DJCVNJ.pdf?xseo=&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22q2_2021.pdf%22 https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/ZBOUYO_TSLA_Q2_2021_Updat...
      - stetrain 5y ago
        Interesting to think about, but I still don't see it making business sense for Tesla, even if they follow some crazy optimistic curve and take half the car market. There are already multiple competing companies whose sole job is to make the best fabs at high production rates. Tesla doesn't even make most of their batteries in-house, which is way more core to their business of EV manufacturing. They partner with Panasonic, LG, CATL, etc. because they are in the business of building out manufacturing capacity for battery cells.
DSingularity 5y ago
Surely you mean chip design and not manufacturing.
- gpm 5y ago
  They're apparently already in chip design, so surely he means manufacturing as the potential new business line?
- elif 5y ago
  They already do chip design. You could s/chip/battery/ and make the same incredulous statement 5 years ago Or upholstery, or charging infrastructure, or casting equipment, etc. Tesla had the capital to go as vertical as they want.
  - njarboe 5y ago
    Tesla doesn't makes their own casting equipment (yet?). They do custom order the largest presses built by Idra Group in Italy (owned by a Chinese company) though [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Press
- bob1029 5y ago
  No - I mean manufacturing. At a certain level of demand it could make sense, especially if the classes of devices you seek to produce are heterogeneous in their engineering - aerospace vs phone vs car. The other advantage with vertical integration through the manufacturing piece is turn around time on new designs. It is a lot faster/easier to spin new test lots for speculative designs when everyone works for the same org.
petra 5y ago
Musk's companies win(usually, not always) by finding niches with sleepy competition and doing great engineering work there. The semi industry is really far from that.