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Can someone explain why Intel needs TSMC to make their chips? Why can't they just buy ASML's machines and use them to make their own chips?
Can someone explain why Intel needs TSMC to make their chips? Why can't they just buy ASML's machines and use them to make their own chips?
Fabs are just a wee bit more complicated than buy the machine and plug it in. Everything is very tightly integrated under insanely precise requirements. Changing equipment is akin to redesigning and reconstructing a non trivial portion of the fab. And that's just integrating these lithography machines, which are but one piece of a huge puzzle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need to login to show the whole thread. I hit the same wall. Twitter was already a terrible medium for these kinds of posts, now it just got worse.
I didn't need to log in: I got the rest of the thread by following the link "see rest of this thread". That link though is easy to miss, what with being somewhere mid-page and being surrounded by elements that are visually much louder, and I, too, wish that no one here would submit or upvote links to Twitter.
Shame seeing Twitter going the way of pinterest. I’ll assume the rest of the thread is just as informative.
So what does TSMC then do that no one else can replicate if they use these machines?
Ah yes, ASML. I have a number of friends and ex-colleagues who work there. Unsurprisingly, due to their importance, ASML are extremely well-known inside of the Netherlands. It's one of those companies that spun out of Philips Electronics and became very successful (NXP is another good example). A lot of research and development is still going on in the area where Philips had their research labs. If you're curious to…
Twitter won't show complete threads now without an account. :( Twitter accounts basically de facto require a phone number, or they get suspended.
Can someone explain why Intel needs TSMC to make their chips? Why can't they just buy ASML's machines and use them to make their own chips?
Intel already has a fab which makes it's own chips. They can print, their problem is the design process on smaller nodes.
Now TSMC is two major nodes ahead with 3 nm risk production credibly scheduled for this year and mass production next year, with Intel said to be buying a lot of that. What was Intel's still delayed 7 nm node, the first to use EUV, is now named Intel 4. I've not looked at it closely, but it looks like something equivalent to TSMC 3 nm nodes is scheduled as Intel 20A for angstrom and 18A, sometime in 2024 and 2025.
I have yet to see anything that convinces me Intel will regain its ability to make state of the art logic chips, which for many generations was one of their most important advantages, allowing them to beat "smarter" CPU designs with their own CPUs being manufactured 1-2 nodes ahead of everyone else. It will be interesting if some day the true story of how this happened is revealed.
I feel like ASML is the company that almost everyone who would care has heard of at this point. Granted, I hadn't heard of them 3 years ago, even though I work directly with HW designers. Its just funny how they're going through the hype cycle in their level of public awareness. Give it 3 years and (hopefully) the "general public" won't have to care about them again, because chip shortages are resolved :)
ASML will matter for decades unless a competitor surpasses them. US is already blocking them from exporting to China https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from... the company is probably as important as TSMC in terms of geopolitics now
Which works until China invades Taiwan. Then what?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
ASML will matter for decades unless a competitor surpasses them. US is already blocking them from exporting to China https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from... the company is probably as important as TSMC in terms of geopolitics now
> US is already blocking them from exporting to China Which works until China invades Taiwan. Then what?