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> Here is the actual die photograph and confirmation that this is being done on TSMC 7nm. Yikes, Intel. Has to be a pretty low moment as a chipmaker to have to

> Here is the actual die photograph and confirmation that this is being done on TSMC 7nm. Yikes, Intel. Has to be a pretty low moment as a chipmaker to have to use your competitor's fabs for something like this.

epolanski 3y ago
Intel has a prototype 1.8nm node which Nvidia already tested and spoken well of. But yes, the 10nm node has been a disaster for Intel and set the company back 5/10 years on the chip making business.
- derefr 3y ago
  If not for Intel's 10nm debacle, Apple probably wouldn't have left. All of Apple's early-2010s hardware designs were predicated on Intel's three-years-out promises of thermal+power efficiency for 10nm, that just never materialized.
  - hypercube33 3y ago
    Let's not forget Intel had issues with atom soc chips dying like crazy due to power-on-hours in things like Cisco routers, Nas and other devices around this era too. I think that had a big ripple effect on them to play a cog in their machine around 2018 or so. Yes 10nm+++++ was a big problem, too. Apple was also busy going independent and I think their path is to merge iOS with MacOX someday here so it makes sense to dump x86 in favor of higher control and profit margins.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      Right. It made no sense for Apple to have complete control over most of their devices, with custom innovations moving between them, and still remain dependent on Intel for one class of devices. Intel downsides for Apple: 1. No reliable control of schedule, specs, CPU, GPU, DPU core counts, high/low power core ratios, energy envelopes. 2. No ability to embed special Apple designed blocks (Secure Enclave, Video processing, whatever, ...) 3. Intel still hasn't moved to on-chip RAM, shared across all core-types. (As far as I know?) 4. The need to negotiate Intel chip supplies, complicated by Intel's plans for other partner's needs. 5. An inability to differentiate Mac's basic computing capabilities from every other PC that continues to use Intel. 6. Intel requiring Apple to support a second instruction architecture, and a more complex stack of software development tools. Apple solved 1000 problems when they ditched Intel.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - ac29 3y ago
        > 3. Intel still hasn't moved to on-chip RAM, shared across all core-types. (As far as I know?) Apple doesnt have on chip RAM either. They do the exact same thing PC manufacturers do: use standard off the shelf DDR.
        Nevermark 3y ago
        Ah yes. The CPU and RAM are mounted tightly together in a system on a chip (SOC) package, so that all RAM is shared by CPU, GPU, DPU/Neural and processor cache. I can't seem to find any Intel chips that are packaged with unified RAM like that.
    - RF_Savage 3y ago
      Yep. Got hit twice by that. Enough power on hours on those Atoms = some clock buffer dies and now your device no longer boots.
  - 1over137 3y ago
    >If not for Intel's 10nm debacle, Apple probably wouldn't have left I doubt it. Apple loves doing full vertical stack as much as possible.
    - JimmyAustin 3y ago
      Apple left for TSMC, not to do in-house chip fabrication.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
        Apple had been doing their own mobile processors for a decade. It was matter of time before they vertically integrated the desktop. They definitely did not leave Intel over the process tech.
        monocasa 3y ago
        Apple has been investing directly in mobile processors since they bought a stake in ARM for the Newton. Then later they heavily invested in PortalPlayer, the designer of the iPod SoCs. Their strategy for desktop and mobile processors has been different since the 90s and they only consolidated because it made sense to ditch their partners in the desktop space.
        nimchimpsky 3y ago
        [dead]
        throwawaylinux 3y ago
        > Apple has been investing directly in mobile processors since they bought a stake in ARM for the Newton. Then later they heavily invested in PortalPlayer, the designer of the iPod SoCs. Not this heavily. They bought an entire CPU design and implementation team (PA Semi).
  - Tsarbomb 3y ago
    I hard disagree. The chassis and cooler designs of the old intel based macs sandbagged the performance a great deal. They were already building a narrative to their investors and consumers that a jump to in house chip design was necessary. You can see this sandbagging in the old intel chassis Apple Silicon MBP where their performance is markedly worse than the ones in the newer chassis.
    - acdha 3y ago
      That doesn’t make sense: everyone else got hit by Intel’s failure to deliver, too. Even if you assume Apple had some 4-D chess plan where making their own products worse was needed to justify a huge gamble, it’s not like Dell or HP were in on it. Slapping a monster heat sink and fan on can help with performance but then you’re paying with weight, battery life, and purchase price. I think a more parsimonious explanation is the accepted one: Intel was floundering for ages, Apple’s phone CPUs were booming, and a company which had suffered a lot due to supplier issues in the PowerPC era decided that they couldn’t afford to let another company have that much control over their product line. It wasn’t just things like the CPUs failing further behind but also the various chipset restrictions and inability to customize things. Apple puts a ton of hardware in to support things like security or various popular tasks (image & video processing, ML, etc.) and now that’s an internal conversation, and the net result is cheaper, cooler, and a unique selling point for them.
      - mattlondon 3y ago
        > net result is cheaper, cooler, and a unique selling point for them That and they are not paying for Intel's profit margins either. Apple is the quintessential vertical integration - they own their entire stack.
        acdha 3y ago
        I was thinking of that as cheaper but there’s also a strategic aspect: Apple is comfortable making challenging long-term plans, and if one of those required them to run the Mac division at low profitability for a couple of years they’d do it far more readily than even a core supplier like Intel.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    I dunno, they could have gone to AMD who is on TSMC and have lots of design wins in other proprietary machines where the manufacturer has a lot of say in tweaking the chip (=game consoles). I think Apple really wanted to unify the Mac and iOS platforms and it would have happened regardless.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      If Intel didn't have those problems, Intel would still be ahead of TSMC, and the M1 might have well be behind the equivalent Intel product in terms of performance and efficiency. It is hard to justify a switch to your inhouse architecture under these conditions.
  - yread 3y ago
    Apple switching to ARM also cost some time. It took like 2 years before you could run Docker on M1. Lots of people delayed their purchases until their apps could run
tgtweak 3y ago
nvidia and amd have already signed contracts to use Intel's fab service (angstrom-class) so it's not unfathomable to consider. AMD did the same when they dropped global foundries and it could be argued that this was the main reason for their jump ahead vs intel. They're all using ASML lithography machines anyway, so who's feeding the wafers into the machine is kind of inconsequential.
- wmf 3y ago
  who's feeding the wafers into the machine is kind of inconsequential If that was true Intel wouldn't be years behind.
- sevenlake 3y ago
  " amd have already signed contracts to use Intel's fab service" Source requested, I follow this news closely and have not seen anything that AMD is using Intel's fab. Nvidia praised their test chip and that indicates they might use Intel's fab. They have not definitively announced that either (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip-results-for-next-gen-process-look-good https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip...) Amazon was using Intel Foundry for packaging, not fabrication. And Qualcomm was considering 20A (https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-announces-first-foundry-customers/ https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-announces-first-foundry-custom...) in 2021, but there was a rumor earlier this year that Qualcomm might not use it after all (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-reportedly-ditches-Intel-20A-in-favour-of-TSMC-and-Samsung.739789.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-reportedly-ditches-In...)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  That’s a colossal overstatement. I suggest you checkout Asianometry on YouTube. TSMC is in a unique position in the market and its integration with ASML is one of the chapters in this novel.
wmf 3y ago
TSMC processes are easier to use and there's a whole IP ecosystem around them that doesn't exist for Intel's in-house processes. I can easily imagine a research project preferring to use TSMC.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Many intel products that aren't strategically tied to their process nodes use TSMC for this reason. You can buy a lot of stuff off-the-shelf and integration is a lot quicker.
renewiltord 3y ago
They've used them for maybe 15 years for their non-PC processors, guys. If you search Google with the time filter between 2001 and 2010 you'll find news on it. There must be some reason HN users don't know very much about semiconductors. Probably principally a software audience? Probably the highest confidence:commentary_quality ratio on this site.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  I'd assume people who do know about semiconductors are more used to NDAs and less apt to publicly pontificate.
georgeburdell 3y ago
Pretty much everything that isn't a logic CPU is a 2nd class citizen at Intel fabs. It explains why a lot of oddball stuff like this is TSMC. Example: Silicon Photonics itself is being done in Albuquerque, which was a dead/dying site.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

epolanski 3y ago

Intel has a prototype 1.8nm node which Nvidia already tested and spoken well of. But yes, the 10nm node has been a disaster for Intel and set the company back 5/10 years on the chip making business.

derefr 3y ago
If not for Intel's 10nm debacle, Apple probably wouldn't have left. All of Apple's early-2010s hardware designs were predicated on Intel's three-years-out promises of thermal+power efficiency for 10nm, that just never materialized.
- hypercube33 3y ago
  Let's not forget Intel had issues with atom soc chips dying like crazy due to power-on-hours in things like Cisco routers, Nas and other devices around this era too. I think that had a big ripple effect on them to play a cog in their machine around 2018 or so. Yes 10nm+++++ was a big problem, too. Apple was also busy going independent and I think their path is to merge iOS with MacOX someday here so it makes sense to dump x86 in favor of higher control and profit margins.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    Right. It made no sense for Apple to have complete control over most of their devices, with custom innovations moving between them, and still remain dependent on Intel for one class of devices. Intel downsides for Apple: 1. No reliable control of schedule, specs, CPU, GPU, DPU core counts, high/low power core ratios, energy envelopes. 2. No ability to embed special Apple designed blocks (Secure Enclave, Video processing, whatever, ...) 3. Intel still hasn't moved to on-chip RAM, shared across all core-types. (As far as I know?) 4. The need to negotiate Intel chip supplies, complicated by Intel's plans for other partner's needs. 5. An inability to differentiate Mac's basic computing capabilities from every other PC that continues to use Intel. 6. Intel requiring Apple to support a second instruction architecture, and a more complex stack of software development tools. Apple solved 1000 problems when they ditched Intel.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ac29 3y ago
      > 3. Intel still hasn't moved to on-chip RAM, shared across all core-types. (As far as I know?) Apple doesnt have on chip RAM either. They do the exact same thing PC manufacturers do: use standard off the shelf DDR.
      - Nevermark 3y ago
        Ah yes. The CPU and RAM are mounted tightly together in a system on a chip (SOC) package, so that all RAM is shared by CPU, GPU, DPU/Neural and processor cache. I can't seem to find any Intel chips that are packaged with unified RAM like that.
  - RF_Savage 3y ago
    Yep. Got hit twice by that. Enough power on hours on those Atoms = some clock buffer dies and now your device no longer boots.
- 1over137 3y ago
  >If not for Intel's 10nm debacle, Apple probably wouldn't have left I doubt it. Apple loves doing full vertical stack as much as possible.
  - JimmyAustin 3y ago
    Apple left for TSMC, not to do in-house chip fabrication.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      Apple had been doing their own mobile processors for a decade. It was matter of time before they vertically integrated the desktop. They definitely did not leave Intel over the process tech.
      - monocasa 3y ago
        Apple has been investing directly in mobile processors since they bought a stake in ARM for the Newton. Then later they heavily invested in PortalPlayer, the designer of the iPod SoCs. Their strategy for desktop and mobile processors has been different since the 90s and they only consolidated because it made sense to ditch their partners in the desktop space.
        nimchimpsky 3y ago
        [dead]
        throwawaylinux 3y ago
        > Apple has been investing directly in mobile processors since they bought a stake in ARM for the Newton. Then later they heavily invested in PortalPlayer, the designer of the iPod SoCs. Not this heavily. They bought an entire CPU design and implementation team (PA Semi).
- Tsarbomb 3y ago
  I hard disagree. The chassis and cooler designs of the old intel based macs sandbagged the performance a great deal. They were already building a narrative to their investors and consumers that a jump to in house chip design was necessary. You can see this sandbagging in the old intel chassis Apple Silicon MBP where their performance is markedly worse than the ones in the newer chassis.
  - acdha 3y ago
    That doesn’t make sense: everyone else got hit by Intel’s failure to deliver, too. Even if you assume Apple had some 4-D chess plan where making their own products worse was needed to justify a huge gamble, it’s not like Dell or HP were in on it. Slapping a monster heat sink and fan on can help with performance but then you’re paying with weight, battery life, and purchase price. I think a more parsimonious explanation is the accepted one: Intel was floundering for ages, Apple’s phone CPUs were booming, and a company which had suffered a lot due to supplier issues in the PowerPC era decided that they couldn’t afford to let another company have that much control over their product line. It wasn’t just things like the CPUs failing further behind but also the various chipset restrictions and inability to customize things. Apple puts a ton of hardware in to support things like security or various popular tasks (image & video processing, ML, etc.) and now that’s an internal conversation, and the net result is cheaper, cooler, and a unique selling point for them.
    - mattlondon 3y ago
      > net result is cheaper, cooler, and a unique selling point for them That and they are not paying for Intel's profit margins either. Apple is the quintessential vertical integration - they own their entire stack.
      - acdha 3y ago
        I was thinking of that as cheaper but there’s also a strategic aspect: Apple is comfortable making challenging long-term plans, and if one of those required them to run the Mac division at low profitability for a couple of years they’d do it far more readily than even a core supplier like Intel.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  I dunno, they could have gone to AMD who is on TSMC and have lots of design wins in other proprietary machines where the manufacturer has a lot of say in tweaking the chip (=game consoles). I think Apple really wanted to unify the Mac and iOS platforms and it would have happened regardless.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    If Intel didn't have those problems, Intel would still be ahead of TSMC, and the M1 might have well be behind the equivalent Intel product in terms of performance and efficiency. It is hard to justify a switch to your inhouse architecture under these conditions.
- yread 3y ago
  Apple switching to ARM also cost some time. It took like 2 years before you could run Docker on M1. Lots of people delayed their purchases until their apps could run

tgtweak 3y ago

nvidia and amd have already signed contracts to use Intel's fab service (angstrom-class) so it's not unfathomable to consider. AMD did the same when they dropped global foundries and it could be argued that this was the main reason for their jump ahead vs intel. They're all using ASML lithography machines anyway, so who's feeding the wafers into the machine is kind of inconsequential.

wmf 3y ago
who's feeding the wafers into the machine is kind of inconsequential If that was true Intel wouldn't be years behind.
sevenlake 3y ago
" amd have already signed contracts to use Intel's fab service" Source requested, I follow this news closely and have not seen anything that AMD is using Intel's fab. Nvidia praised their test chip and that indicates they might use Intel's fab. They have not definitively announced that either (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip-results-for-next-gen-process-look-good https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip...) Amazon was using Intel Foundry for packaging, not fabrication. And Qualcomm was considering 20A (https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-announces-first-foundry-customers/ https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-announces-first-foundry-custom...) in 2021, but there was a rumor earlier this year that Qualcomm might not use it after all (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-reportedly-ditches-Intel-20A-in-favour-of-TSMC-and-Samsung.739789.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-reportedly-ditches-In...)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tambourine_man 3y ago
That’s a colossal overstatement. I suggest you checkout Asianometry on YouTube. TSMC is in a unique position in the market and its integration with ASML is one of the chapters in this novel.

wmf 3y ago

TSMC processes are easier to use and there's a whole IP ecosystem around them that doesn't exist for Intel's in-house processes. I can easily imagine a research project preferring to use TSMC.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Many intel products that aren't strategically tied to their process nodes use TSMC for this reason. You can buy a lot of stuff off-the-shelf and integration is a lot quicker.

renewiltord 3y ago

They've used them for maybe 15 years for their non-PC processors, guys. If you search Google with the time filter between 2001 and 2010 you'll find news on it. There must be some reason HN users don't know very much about semiconductors. Probably principally a software audience? Probably the highest confidence:commentary_quality ratio on this site.

ethbr1 3y ago
I'd assume people who do know about semiconductors are more used to NDAs and less apt to publicly pontificate.

georgeburdell 3y ago

Pretty much everything that isn't a logic CPU is a 2nd class citizen at Intel fabs. It explains why a lot of oddball stuff like this is TSMC. Example: Silicon Photonics itself is being done in Albuquerque, which was a dead/dying site.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]