Read more.Meanwhile, Intel teased an Xe GPU event for 14th August, but seems to have changed its mind…
Read more.Meanwhile, Intel teased an Xe GPU event for 14th August, but seems to have changed its mind…
I wonder how much Intel barrel barged in and whether it has impacted AMDs access or did TSMC put a red line around existing capacity.
Historically, TSMC have seemingly refused to allow any one company to unfairly push out competitors, even when Apple tried and failed to gain exclusive access to cutting-edge nodes. In this case, 7nm's increasing capacity along with Huawei's exit probably lines up well with increasing demand from other companies.
Don't forget Intel is TSMC's competitor and I doubt it's in TSMC's long-term interest to displace any of their long-term customers like AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm, etc in order to benefit a customer who will be looking to abandon them as soon as their own fabs are competitive again.
kompukare (27-07-2020)
Intel's NNP-T was being built at TSMC, but was cancelled when Intel decided to go with Habana NNP designs back in Feb.
Intel has several chip presentations at Hotchips 2020, in mid August ... Ice Lake Server, Tiger Lake, Xe GPU, Tofino 2, Agilex FPGA and a keynote by Raja Koduri.
My understanding is that transferring from one node to another isn't straightforward, so if this is happening there's more chance of there being a particular range or segment that's TSMC outsourced, rather than just a simple % of production.
Also: Zen 4 still on 7nm+?
Honestly, if I was TSMC, I'd be considering the following:
1) AMD is fabless and therefore relies on TSMC, et al to be competitive
2) AMD remaining competitive ensures repeat and increasing business
3) Intel will sod off as soon as they have their own fabs online
4) I'm not building more fab capacity for Intel because they may leave as soon as their fabs work
5) It may be in my long term best interests to stifle Intel right now and give AMD a competitive advantage as we have a symbiotic relationship as per 1 and 2.
6) Intel is known as a business which throws its weight around willy nilly - do I want to be involved with someone who might stab me in the back?
7) I'm already in a position where I can negotiate hard on prices and Intel has got to be desperate.
8) Accepting loadsa cash now from Intel may send otherwise long term customers elsewhere and when Intel leave, I'll be left with money but a poorer long term outlook.
9) Maybe I bleed Intel dry and then use the money to subsidise AMD for giggles.
I believe there were some radio/modem-related products made elsewhere including ported Atom cores before Intel abandoned that segment. I know they were planned but can't remember how much they actually took off.
Absolutely - plus making the same product at two fabs is risky as-is as you'll generally end up with two differently-performing products. Apple did this dual-sourcing a few years ago with TSMC and Samsung. AMD also ported some of their cat cores across GloFo and TSMC but for separate markets IIRC.
Do you mean the next one, Zen3? Last I heard it's officially some 7nm node but I don't think they've specified exactly which one - the EUV node was rumoured for a while but I don't think AMD ever suggested that. Zen4 is planned for 5nm https://www.anandtech.com/show/15589...-not-specified
Agreed. No doubt it could be fortuitous timing for TSMC if they were at risk of having idle time with Huawei getting the boot though. That, and some of the mobile-oriented customers will be moving to the 5nm node soon.
Another point, AMD develop both CPU and GPU. They are taking back significant proportions of CPU market from Intel, which benefits TSMC.
They are also likely to take back portions of the GPU market, although TSMC already fan a majority of this fir Nvidia, so not really a significant impact, if any at all. As water cooled states, TSMC have a good reputation in this regard.
I'm not familiar with terms of custom chip fabrication (Sony and Microsoft are likely the biggest), but I'd imagine that is a decent chunk too.
When I first read the title, despite knowing about Intel struggling so badly (they really are in a very desperate and troubling situation), I thought Intel were maybe employing poor practices again, to steal available fabrication capacity from AMD.
I'm sure they've considered many illegal scenarios, as they can't keep up and will soon be in big trouble.
With the Intel GFX thing... I think they found out it was a bad idea to hire the AMD guy... or I dunno...
That's what I thought, but the leak here says Zen 3 and 4, marked as 7/7+.
That's a point, talking about capacity. PS5 and XSX are both going to be based on a TSMC-made APU; PS4 hit 7m consoles sold inside 5 months and combined with the Xbox probably 10m in that timeframe, and 20m inside 12 months. I guess their iPhone production is moving from 7nm to 5nm, so depending on how the fabs are setup that's probably still extra capacity available. My guess is that they're hardly desperate for more business either way.
Might? I'm just trying to guess how they could stab TSMC in the back, I honestly don't think they can help themselves as to whether they would.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
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