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TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

theregister.com

31–40 of 107 posts

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#32
post #21

I'd bet $50 in 18 months "the crunch" will still be in full swing (and Raspberry Pi will still be "bringing huge volumes to the market any week now"). There is no way in hell all these expensive fabs will pay for themselves if chips are too cheap. So no one (especially not TSMC) will risk oversupply by building too many fabs.

>There is no way in hell all these expensive fabs will pay for themselves if chips are too cheap.

While this isn't exactly the case here since it is Hi-End packaging that is the problem. But I am still happy to read the statement on HN as I have been ranting about 99% of comments giving little to zero credit to current state of art chip manufacturing and cost.

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#33
post #31

That's when the bubble will burst.

Ah yes, just like when the internet died in 2001…

——

Being a bit more fair, yes a bubble did burst then, but it was a “too much, too quick” type of bursting, not a “this whole thing is a scam” type.

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#35
post #17
post #13

Note that the shortage now is different than the past few years: it is not in fabricating any of the primary chips, it is entirely attributed to insufficient capacity in TSMC’s CoWoS packaging. This is only used for the highest-end accelerator products that use HBM (and a few other things that use full silicon interposers like Apple’s M-Ultras), they are scaling capacity, and there are increasing numbers of alternati…

[flagged]

"ChiComs", seriously? This isn't infowars

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#36

I wonder how this will impact consumer gpus? If nvidia can print money making h100's you have to wonder if they will continue to invest on the retail side or if they'll funnel most of their efforts to server and let desktop parts languish.

They're selling consumer GPUs with huge margins too. The markup on the 40xx series is insane but they're still shipping a ton of units.

Aren't consumer GPU shipments the lowest they've been in over a decade?

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#37
post #17
post #13

Note that the shortage now is different than the past few years: it is not in fabricating any of the primary chips, it is entirely attributed to insufficient capacity in TSMC’s CoWoS packaging. This is only used for the highest-end accelerator products that use HBM (and a few other things that use full silicon interposers like Apple’s M-Ultras), they are scaling capacity, and there are increasing numbers of alternati…

[flagged]

What's ChiComs?

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#38

I wonder how this will impact consumer gpus? If nvidia can print money making h100's you have to wonder if they will continue to invest on the retail side or if they'll funnel most of their efforts to server and let desktop parts languish.

They're selling consumer GPUs with huge margins too. The markup on the 40xx series is insane but they're still shipping a ton of units.

The consumer GPU margins aren't even close to what Nvidia rakes in on an H100 sale.

Rarely does Nvidia sell a GPU for 2000 dollars or more, and when they do its relatively low volume.

An H100 sells for tens of thousands of dollars and is sold out to 2024 - companies are literally fighting over them - I can absolutely see conditions might arise Nvidia might want to use some fab capacity for their much more profitable H100 parts vs consumer GPUs.

Re: TSMC warns AI chip crunch will last another 18 months

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're selling consumer GPUs with huge margins too. The markup on the 40xx series is insane but they're still shipping a ton of units.

Aren't consumer GPU shipments the lowest they've been in over a decade?

Yes but it’s hard to disentangle the effect of the crypto crisis ending last year, the pandemic boom in consumer hardware sales coming to a close, and the pricing of Ada from one another. So many GPUs were sold to miners and made their way to the secondary market that gamers have lots and lots of options that aren’t new sales.
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