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TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

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Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#521

Post by rnk »

NeverFade wrote: post #408
rsj_hn wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automotive industry is still using 90nm chips. It's not even the generation before the current one. They have long production runs and require stability, and they also prefer to use standardized parts across many production runs. Defense also uses older chips. Don't ask what kind of chips are in Amraam missiles or the F-35 -- although the F-35 is getting a technology refresh now (after a 14 year production run). Only…

That's what I thought. If consumer products tend to use the bleeding edge, which will be the state-of-the-art chips produced in Taiwan, then I still don't get: 1. What's so exciting about a prev-gen fab possibly being completed in 2024? 2. Who will buy the chips produced by the 4nm Arizona fab, and why? The only plausible answer offered for 1 in this thread has been that it's too difficult to jump straight into the b…

Because overall the us chip production capacity and technical reach has been reducing over time. We need to establish and pull over a much larger amount of production so our strategic needs can be met inside the us. This helps us avoid problems like our key sources being cut off or destroyed with our allies like Taiwan and South Korea, or China does more and more production and technical leadership and decides to squeeze us.

Intel has sinking in at least technical leadership for a long time. It's obviously a priority a need for the us to on-shore more chip prod.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#522

Post by mdp2021 »

girvo wrote: post #471
mdp2021 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will the renegade snipers make their point explicit.

I can't explain the downvotes, but for what it's worth both Apple and AMD offer far more power for the same TDP when talking about low-wattage parts, do they not? Thats the whole benefit of TSMC's process advantage (and also why Nvidia also moved to them from Samsung this generation). In practice of course, to get the performance uplift consumers expect, AMD and Intel and Nvidia are all pushing TDPs to the limit wher…

> AMD

I don't know: if you check graphs such as

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/power_performance.html

there is intersuccession of Intel and AMD. AMD seems to offer more models, but a proper analysis of their stand-outs and similarities is required to get a proper picture.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#523

Post by [deleted] »

mdp2021 wrote: post #522
girvo wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't explain the downvotes, but for what it's worth both Apple and AMD offer far more power for the same TDP when talking about low-wattage parts, do they not? Thats the whole benefit of TSMC's process advantage (and also why Nvidia also moved to them from Samsung this generation). In practice of course, to get the performance uplift consumers expect, AMD and Intel and Nvidia are all pushing TDPs to the limit wher…

> AMD I don't know: if you check graphs such as https://www.cpubenchmark.net/power_performance.html there is intersuccession of Intel and AMD. AMD seems to offer more models, but a proper analysis of their stand-outs and similarities is required to get a proper picture.

[deleted]

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#524

Post by [deleted] »

ekianjo wrote: post #511
fomine3 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US-Japan trade war was a big thing, and Japan relies on US for national security. There was no option not to manufacturing in the US.

> and Japan relies on US for national security Good luck with that bet in the future.

[deleted]

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#525

Post by sopchi »

pphysch wrote: post #335
menshiki wrote: post #235

Great news for the US. Great news for Apple, AMD, and Nvidia. Not so good news for Taiwan. The fact that the whole tech world is dependent on chips produced in Hsinchu is a huge advantage for the safety of Taiwan. Moving the fabs and talent further away from the island will not benefit the people of Taiwan at all. TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in…

> TSMC with its global influence has been a huge factor for guaranteeing safety of the island and peace in the Taiwan strait. This narrative is echoed around the internet, but if you study the actual history of the Taiwan Strait Crises (which started before the semiconductor was invented), it never comes up in official discussion or analysis. See Kissinger, for example. Cynically, this narrative was possibly promoted…

I was very surprised to find in the recent New Yorker long article about Chinese-Taiwanese Relations [1] that TSMC was only mentioned at the very end. I was expecting this to be central to the story. I recommend reading the whole thing to anyone who has an hour to spare.

"One of the most important deterrents to war is Taiwan’s role in producing semiconductors. Seventy per cent of the world’s most advanced chips are manufactured there, many of them at the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. [...] China is similarly reliant on the highest-end chips produced in Taiwan; it doesn’t have the equipment or the expertise to manufacture them. If China seized control of Taiwan’s semiconductor factories, it could conceivably force local workers to run them. But the factories depend on a constant flow of Western material, software, expertise, and engineers, without which production would cease in a matter of weeks. Pottinger told me, “If the Chinese took the factories, there’s no way the West would help run them.”"

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/21/a-dangerous-ga...

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#526

Post by squintychino »

nailer wrote: post #7

I love how “we can’t make chips in the US anymore it’s impossible” was something we heard only a few years ago.

I mean, that's true. If the 'we' is American companies. They had to bring one in from another country to manufacture here. We stopped being a manufacturing country decades ago.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#528

Post by CallmeDani »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #527

What is the secret of TSMC? I believe a Dutch company makes the machinery that TSMC uses. Why can't other companies use it like TSMC does? Does TSMC hold some crucial patents?

It's a tough industry with absurd barriers of entry. The few that have tried to compete, simply lost.

Asianometry on Youtube has a lot of interesting info about fabs.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#529

Post by _kbh_ »

rsj_hn wrote: post #519
philwelch wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every Russian soldier, vehicle, or round of ammunition expended in Ukraine for increasingly diminishing returns is a Russian soldier, vehicle, or round of ammunition that will never harm a NATO member.

> Every Russian soldier, vehicle, or round of ammunition expended in Ukraine for increasingly diminishing returns is a Russian soldier, vehicle, or round of ammunition that will never harm a NATO member. Sure, and it's also 10 dead Ukrainian soldiers that will never return to their families, and a few thousand people living an extra day in war, and a few hundred more Ukrainian refugees that must be subsidized in Euro…

> It is only by weighing of the lives of the people in the conflict at zero that the U.S. justifies prolonging this proxy war and continuing to arm and subsidize Ukraine.

Ukraine is literally fighting for their sovereignty, America is helping them push the Russians, who are raping and torturing citizens out of the occupied territories.

Every weapon to Ukraine is time less under Russian occupation, which is a good thing.

Re: TSMC to make 4nm chips in Arizona for Apple, AMD, Nvidia

#530

Post by solarkraft »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #527

What is the secret of TSMC? I believe a Dutch company makes the machinery that TSMC uses. Why can't other companies use it like TSMC does? Does TSMC hold some crucial patents?

> Why can't other companies use it like TSMC does?

US foreign policy agreements (-> no machines to China) and very long waiting lists, mostly, AFAIK. My source is Asianometry. Great channel.

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