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And they renamed 10nm to Intel 7, but it is not EUV. Both TSMC and Samsung have moved to EUV, and until Intel does as well they are going to remain behind. All

And they renamed 10nm to Intel 7, but it is not EUV. Both TSMC and Samsung have moved to EUV, and until Intel does as well they are going to remain behind. All that money spent is nice, but until they start taking delivery of tons of equipment from ASML it's not going to help them at the leading edge.

selectodude 4y ago
EUV is a tool, not a process. TSMC N5 isn't 100 percent EUV either. Intel can hit similar feature sizes with Intel 7 as TSMC can but it requires more steps, hitting their margins and lowering their yields. The chips that come out of the other end are equivalent though.
- avs733 4y ago
  > EUV is a tool, not a process. It's kinda both. To be clear, EUV directly refers to a specific type of lithography equipment, ones using extreme UV light sources. However, those changes come with a lot of changes in larger process flow that are all inter-related. The change in EUV means smaller lithography lines, and also means needing photo resist, etching, cleaning, etc. - many other process steps, that support that size change. Add in that now, with EUV lithography, you are operating lithography under vacuum and its a huge challenge. Suddenly you have to have vacuum ready materials. One of Intel's mid 2010 wins was getting immersion litho to work better than peers - similar thing just wet wafers rather than vacuum wafers. EUV is a tool/technology, one used only on critical layers where that precision matters (e.g., gate patterning). But the larger (entire) manufacturing process has to be designed to enable the use of that tool/technology.
bcrl 4y ago
Leading edge processes are not where the shortage exists -- it's trailing process nodes that are used heavily for support chips and automotive. Support chips like voltage regulators sure as hell don't need a 5nm or 7nm process, but they are critical components to any piece of electronics being able to ship. Older processes are ideal for these needs because they are very well characterized / understood, making them excellent for chips with an analog component. And older processes were cheap until demand exceeded supply. Edit: and Intel doesn't and won't play into the market for support chips. There's no way in hell that they can support Intel's required profit margins.
- picture 4y ago
  To add on: Older processes also have lower static current consumption due to less leakage from bigger features. They are quantitatively better in many applications for low power or high precision.
ENOTTY 4y ago
EUV is coming with the Intel 4 process node. Intel is also the lead customer for ASML's High-NA EUV, which is supposed to be the next generation EUV.

selectodude 4y ago

EUV is a tool, not a process. TSMC N5 isn't 100 percent EUV either. Intel can hit similar feature sizes with Intel 7 as TSMC can but it requires more steps, hitting their margins and lowering their yields. The chips that come out of the other end are equivalent though.

avs733 4y ago
> EUV is a tool, not a process. It's kinda both. To be clear, EUV directly refers to a specific type of lithography equipment, ones using extreme UV light sources. However, those changes come with a lot of changes in larger process flow that are all inter-related. The change in EUV means smaller lithography lines, and also means needing photo resist, etching, cleaning, etc. - many other process steps, that support that size change. Add in that now, with EUV lithography, you are operating lithography under vacuum and its a huge challenge. Suddenly you have to have vacuum ready materials. One of Intel's mid 2010 wins was getting immersion litho to work better than peers - similar thing just wet wafers rather than vacuum wafers. EUV is a tool/technology, one used only on critical layers where that precision matters (e.g., gate patterning). But the larger (entire) manufacturing process has to be designed to enable the use of that tool/technology.

bcrl 4y ago

Leading edge processes are not where the shortage exists -- it's trailing process nodes that are used heavily for support chips and automotive. Support chips like voltage regulators sure as hell don't need a 5nm or 7nm process, but they are critical components to any piece of electronics being able to ship. Older processes are ideal for these needs because they are very well characterized / understood, making them excellent for chips with an analog component. And older processes were cheap until demand exceeded supply. Edit: and Intel doesn't and won't play into the market for support chips. There's no way in hell that they can support Intel's required profit margins.

picture 4y ago
To add on: Older processes also have lower static current consumption due to less leakage from bigger features. They are quantitatively better in many applications for low power or high precision.

ENOTTY 4y ago

EUV is coming with the Intel 4 process node. Intel is also the lead customer for ASML's High-NA EUV, which is supposed to be the next generation EUV.