6 ms·
Comments about the marketing driven nm measurements aside, this still looks like another solid advance for TSMC. They are already significantly ahead of Samsung
by futureshock 2y ago
Comments about the marketing driven nm measurements aside, this still looks like another solid advance for TSMC. They are already significantly ahead of Samsung and Intel on transistor density. TSMC is at 197 MTr/mm2 wile Samsung is at 150 MTr/mm2 and Intel is at 123 MTr/mm2. This 1.6nm process will put them around 230 MTr/mm2 by 2026. When viewed by this metric, Intel is really falling behind.
- Workaccount2 2y agoIntel has a 1.4nm process in the pipeline for ~2027. They just took delivery on their first high NA EUV machine in order to start working on it. Their gamble however is that they need to figure out DSA, a long storied technology that uses self-forming polymers to allow less light to sharply etch smaller features. If they figure out DSA, they will likely be ahead of TSMC. If not, it will just be more very expensive languishing.
- saganus 2y agoDo you know the name of the company that produces the EUV machine? is it ASML? It is my understanding that only ASML had cracked the EUV litography, but if there's another company out there, that would be an interesting development to watch.
- singhrac 2y agoIt’s ASML.
- Rinzler89 2y ago>It is my understanding that only ASML had cracked the EUV litography Ackshually, EUV was cracked by Sandia Labs research in the US, with EUV light sources built by Cymer in the US. ASML was the only one allowed to license the tech and integrate it into their steppers after they bough Cymer in 2013. Hence why US has veto rights to whom Dutch based ASML can sell their EUV steppers to, as in not to China, despite ow much ASML shareholders would like that extra Chinese money.
- ano-ther 2y agoMore on the history here: https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2022/making-euv-lab-to-fab https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2022/making-euv-lab-to-...
- EMCymatics 2y agoThanks for the source. I'm glad Bell labs pounced on the opportunity.
- oivey 2y agoPretty cool story of the National Lab system and the closest thing the US has to “government scientists” massively shaping the future.
- s3p 2y agoThey don't need anyone else's money. Intel has bought all of TSMC's EUV and High-NA EUV machines for the next several years.
- Rinzler89 2y ago>They don't need anyone else's money There's no such thing in capitalism. Limited supply semi is(was) a bidding war, where China had a blank cheque and was willing to outbid everyone else to secure semi manufacturing supremacy. Do you think Intel or TSMC could have scored all that ASML supply at that price if China would have been allowed to bid as well? ASML would have been able to score way higher market prices per EUV stepper had China been allowed in the game, and therefore higher profits. You think ASML shareholders hate higher profits or what? Nvidia sure didn't during the pandemic. You wanted a GPU? Great, it would cost you now 2x-3x the original MSRP because free market capitalism and the laws of supply and demand.
- saganus 2y agoDid not know that. Thanks
- ahartmetz 2y ago
- nabla9 2y agoYes, and Intel was the first to install the first High-NA EUV machine from ASML, TWINSCAN EXE:5000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PCtf1ONYMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PCtf1ONYMU ps. Intel used to own 15% of ASML in 2012, now they own less than 2%.
- hackernudes 2y agoDSA = Directed Self-Assembly
- dev1ycan 2y agoIntel says a lot of things but until they put them out in the field I don't believe a word they say
- Sysreq2 2y agoThe nomenclature for microchip manufacturing left reality a couple generations ago. Intel’s 14A process is not a true 14A half-pitch. It’s kind of like how they started naming CPUs off “performance equivalents” instead of using raw clock speed. And this isn’t just Intel. TSMC, Samsung, everyone is doing half-pitch equivalent naming now a days. This is the industry roadmap from 2022: https://irds.ieee.org/images/files/pdf/2022/2022IRDS_Litho.pdf https://irds.ieee.org/images/files/pdf/2022/2022IRDS_Litho.p... If you look at page 6 there is a nice table that kind of explains it. Certain feature sizes have hit a point of diminishing returns, so they are finding new ways to increase performance. Each generation is better than the last but we have moved beyond simple shrinkage. Comparing Intel’s 14A label to TSMCs 16A is meaningless without performance benchmarks. They are both just marketing terms. Like the Intel/AMD CPU wars. You can’t say one is better because the label says it’s faster. There’s so much other stuff to consider.
- confused_boner 2y agowould performance per watt be the right way to benchmark?
- futureshock 2y agoBenchmarks are tricky because it all depends on workload and use case. If you are in a VR headset for example, it’s all about power envelope and GPU flops. If you are in a Desktop used for productivity it might be all about peak CPU performance.
- wtallis 2y agoWhen comparing fab processes, you wouldn't want performance of a whole processor but rather the voltage vs frequency curves for the different transistor libraries offered by each fab process.
- Workaccount2 2y ago"Likely better" doesn't come from 14A vs 16A. It comes from Intel using High NA-EUV vs TSMC using double pattern Low NA-EUV. If Intel pulls off DSA, they will be using a newer generation of technology compared to TSMC using an optimized older generation. Could TSMC still make better chips? Maybe. But Intel will likely be better.
- ReptileMan 2y agoNot understanding chip design - but is it possible to get more computational bang with less transistors - are there some optimizations to be had? Better design that could compensate for bigger nodes?
- pixelpoet 2y agoSuch optimisation would apply equally to the more dense processes, though.
- mort96 2y agoIn general, yes, but all the chip design companies have already invested a whole lot of time and engineering resources into squeezing as much as possible from each transistor. But those kinds of optimizations are certainly part of why we sometimes see new CPU generations released on the same node.
- 7thpower 2y agoYes, generally one of the trends has been movement toward specialized coprocessors/accelerators. This was happening before the recent AI push and has picked up steam. If you think of an SOC, the chip in your phone, more and more of the real estate is being dedicated to specialized compute (AI accelerators, GPUs, etc. vs general purpose compute (CPU). At the enterprise scale, one of the big arguments NVIDIA has been making, beyond their value in the AI market, has been the value of moving massive, resource intense workloads from CPU to more specialized GPU acceleration. In return for the investment to move their workload, customers can get a massive increase in performance per watt/dollar. There are some other factors at play in that example, and it may not always be true that the transistors/mm^2 is always lower, but I think it illustrates the overall point.
- merb 2y agoJavaScript accelerator would probably half the power consumption of the world. The problem is just, that as soon as it would have widespread usage it would probably already be too old.
- rowanG077 2y agoAre intel really just the best chip designers on the earth or why can they compete with such densities with AMD?
- smolder 2y agoI'd say they haven't been very competitive with AMD in performance per watt/dollar in the ryzen era, specifically due to process advantage. (On CPU dies especially, with less advantage for AMDs I/O dies.) I'd agree they have done a good job advancing other aspects of their designs to close the gap, though.
- black_puppydog 2y agoStupid beginner question: is MTr/mm² really the right thing to be looking at? Shouldn't it be more like mm²/MTr ? This feels kind of like these weird "miles per gallon" units, when "gallons per mile" is much more useful...
- simpsond 2y ago200 million transistors per square millimeter. Gallons per mile only makes sense when you are talking about dragsters.
- baq 2y agogallons per hundred miles make much more sense than that. incidentally, this is the measure rest of the world is advertising, except usually in liters per 100km. there's a good reason for this: comparisons linear instead of inversely proportional. 6l/100km is 50% better than 9l/100km. 30mpg vs 20mpg is... not as simple.
- gameshot911 2y ago>30mpg vs 20mpg is... not as simple. How so?
- Detrytus 2y agoGallons per hundred miles would be more useful. I guess it's a matter of approach. Europeans are traveling familiar, constant distances and worry about fuel cost. Americans just fill up their tank and worry how far they can go :)
- satiric 2y agoIf I buy 2 gallons of gas, and my car gets 30 mpg, then I can go 60 miles. Doesn't seem that hard to me. Need the other way around? I need to go 100 miles. At 30 miles per gallon, that's a little over 3 gallons. This is simple mental math.
- kumarvvr 2y agoIts so hard to even fathom 200+ Million Transistors in 1 square millimeter ! And, to think, it's all done with light ! We live in interesting times !
- pjc50 2y agoWell, "extreme UV" these days. 13.5nm, larger than the "feature size". And even that required heroic effort in development of light sources and optics.
- seastarer 2y agoTranslating 197 M/mm2 into the dimensions of a square, we get a dimension of 71nm. If we compute the "half-pitch", that's 35.5nm. 230 M/mm2 translates to 33nm "half-pitch". Of course, transistors aren't square and aren't so densely packed, but these numbers are more real IMO.
- alberth 2y ago> This 1.6nm process will put them around 230 MTr/mm2 Would it be that x2 (for front & back)? E.g., 230 on front side and another 230 on back side = 460 MTr/mm2 TOTAL
- zeusk 2y agoBSPDN is not about putting devices on the front and back, the logic layer is still mostly 2D, it's about the power connects moving to the back of the chip so there's less interference with logic and larger wiring can be used.