Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A look inside TSMC

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 68 posts

Re: A look inside TSMC

#51

Post by tpmx »

hapless wrote: post #48
tpmx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my old Intel CPUs (80s/90s) are "made in Malaysia". So I guess they did in the past. Edit: here's some PR: https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/intel-marks-40-years-i...

The processor package was made in Malaysia at the Penang assembly plant. The chip inside that package was fabbed elsewhere, most probably the USA.

Ah. So what they did at the Penang site was bonding, testing and packaging? (Not sure I'm using the correct terminology.)

That makes more sense now that I think of it. Can't imagine there was a steady supply of electricity there back in the early 70s. (Got any source though?)

Re: A look inside TSMC

#52

Post by Fordec »

temac wrote: post #47
Fordec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of a few. Unbundling the engineering model as the current system is highly integrated - do certain segments of the process better than the incumbents. This would be primarily a business model innovation, not an engineering one. New architectures, as Intel have shown lately, their architecture isn't perfect. This requires a new set of design thinking from the ground up and challenging existing assumptions…

Risc V is made to be boring. It does nothing to "challeng[e] existing assumptions about Von Neumann architectures and instruction sets". It is also very unlikely to become the next high perf ISA for tons of reasons, it is more suited for embedded stuff.

Risc V doesn't touch on Von Neumann architectures. That could be addressed by tech like Memristors as an example but to put it lightly, they're not ready yet.

But the belief that to be a competitive fab house you have to churn out high performance chips is in itself one of the existing unquestioned assumptions of chip manufacture which may not pan out in the longer term. The idea of the generic CPU may very well become seen as a luxurious, wasteful idea once Moore's law properly runs out of road in a few years. Specialization will breed new ISAs, even boring ones.

Re: A look inside TSMC

#53

Post by kken »

barrkel wrote: post #23
siscia wrote: post #18

I really found TSMC inspiring, the level of technology reached is amazing. I only wish an effort from Europe to bring this expertise also in Europe.

Two European companies are mentioned as producing critical hardware for the process.

Yes, it's ASML and their technology partners in Europe (Zeiss, Trumpf, many others).

ASML is really at the core of bleeding edge semi. Their lithography equipment is basically unchallenged in the industry. Noone can make a 7nm CPU without them.

Re: A look inside TSMC

#54

Post by nrp »

taspeotis wrote: post #19

The article mentions it obliquely but fewer companies than ever can fab at the “edge.” [1] And Intel has faltered somewhat. I can’t think of how there is going to be a new entrant to the market that competes with the current three’s processes. [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node#Leading_edge_tr...

I suspect SMIC or another Chinese foundry will get there over the next 10-20 years. China justifyably considers it a strategic priority and a matter of national security and will put in as much money as it takes to pull people and IP out of Taiwan, South Korea, and the US to make it happen. The closest parallels are display fabrication, where BOE and CSOT have swallowed the LCD market and BOE is on track to compete with Samsung on OLED market share over the next five years. Similarly, there are a handful of fabs in China now starting to ramp DRAM and flash on competitive process nodes.

Re: A look inside TSMC

#55

Post by trebligdivad »

sytelus wrote: post #6

One thing I don't understand is why fabs got uprooted from USA. There doesn't seem to be cost savings if you try to offshore a multi-billion dollar fab because labor is not the main cost. So fab in China/Taiwan/USA should cost more or less same money to run.

I did wonder if Apple would build a fab; I mean what else do you do with all that cash you've got sloshing about, and they must use a fair chunk of output of a fab.

Re: A look inside TSMC

#57

Post by sct202 »

vladimirralev wrote: post #27
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSMC is a Taiwanese company. The people in the C-suite are Taiwanese. The fabs are in Taiwan. The people who operate the fabs are in Taiwan. The people who do the R&D for all the processes live in Taiwan. The people who create the Intellectual Property live in Taiwan. Analogously, many decades ago Mitsubishi Group, a Japanese company, bought Rockefeller Center. Ha ha. Good luck with that. If things didn't work out it…

Sooner or later TSMC will build next-gen R&D facilities and fabs. Shareholders will be able to vote for the new locations.

Shareholders typically don't vote on things like that directly, but they can vote for Directors who usually have the power to fire/hire CEO's who then make decisions like new locations.

Re: A look inside TSMC

#58

Post by kken »

When I read the title, I was actually hoping for a video tour of one of their fully automated 300mm Fabs.

Unfortunately it seems that video material of cutting edge fabs on the web is scarce, and what is available does not really show the fab as a whole, but only details instead.

Well, I guess everybody is afraid of giving away IP...

Some examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoOAOOMjHo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaASEMAMCNM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VIgU1hPok

Research labs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PCQAJzHj8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD7JOwpNXo

Re: A look inside TSMC

#59

Post by selimthegrim »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #20
dotnetcore wrote: post #4

TSMC = 80% foreign investment. its hardly Taiwanese at this point...

TSMC is a Taiwanese company. The people in the C-suite are Taiwanese. The fabs are in Taiwan. The people who operate the fabs are in Taiwan. The people who do the R&D for all the processes live in Taiwan. The people who create the Intellectual Property live in Taiwan. Analogously, many decades ago Mitsubishi Group, a Japanese company, bought Rockefeller Center. Ha ha. Good luck with that. If things didn't work out it…

If they were to nationalize it tomorrow (say under threat of war from PRC) I don’t think you’d see 80% of the employees walk

Re: A look inside TSMC

#60

Post by baybal2 »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #45
sytelus wrote: post #6

One thing I don't understand is why fabs got uprooted from USA. There doesn't seem to be cost savings if you try to offshore a multi-billion dollar fab because labor is not the main cost. So fab in China/Taiwan/USA should cost more or less same money to run.

As a sibling comment points out, there is still significant fab capacity in the US. There are a LOT of things to untangle. The first thing is the difference between leading edge fabrication, and everything else. If you look at this wiki list of active fabs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... ), you'll see lots of plants still building stuff at 45nm+, and a large chunk building in 22-45nm…

> Intel has some fabs in Ireland (I don't really know why..)

Tax

Post reply on HN