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> TSMC 5-nm process of almost 4 years ago N5 is interesting because it's the first process fully designed around EUV and because it was pretty much exclusive t
by formerly_proven 3y ago
> TSMC 5-nm process of almost 4 years ago
N5 is interesting because it's the first process fully designed around EUV and because it was pretty much exclusive to Apple for almost two years. It launched in Apple products in late 2020, then crickets until about late 2022 (Zen 4, RTX 4000, Radeon 7000). Launches of the other vendors were still on N7 or older processes in 2020 - RTX 3000 for example used some 10nm Samsung process in late 2020. All of those were DUV (including Intel 7 / 10ESF). That's the step change we are looking at.
- ajross 3y agoExactly. N5 is sort of an outlier, it's a process where a bunch of technology bets and manufacturing investment all came together to produce a big leap in competitive positioning. It's the same kind of thing we saw with Intel 22nm[1], where Ivy Bridge was just wiping the floor with the rest of the industry. Improvements since have been modest, to the extent that N3 is only barely any better (c.f. the Apple M3 is... still a really great CPU, but not actually that much of an upgrade over the M2). There's a hole for Intel to aim at now. We'll see. [1] Also 32nm and 45nm, really. It's easy to forget now, but Intel strung together a just shocking number of dominant processes in the 00's.
- bcrl 3y agoThe reason N5 came together for TSMC is because they run more experiments per unit time than Intel does. They're doing this 24 hours a day across multiple shifts, which makes it possible for them to improve a given process faster. It remains to be seen if Intel can actually pull ahead or not without a major culture change, or if "this time" they can succeed at becoming a trusted foundry partner that can drive enough volume to support the ongoing investment needed in leading edge fabs.