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TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

reuters.com

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Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#41

Post by tester756 »

lisper wrote: post #2

This makes absolutely no sense. A month ago the headline was "Apple buys every 3 nm chip that TSMC can make for next-gen iPhones and Macs" [1]. Six months ago it was a global chip shortage that had supply chains backed up around the planet. And now it's suddenly "the world's top contract chipmaker grows increasingly nervous about customer demand"? In the middle of a revolution in AI? Something doesn't add up here. ht…

>In the middle of a revolution in AI? Something doesn't add up here.

Middle? hasn't the hype died already?

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#42

Post by kurthr »

addaon wrote: post #39
govg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you mention where these chips from older mature nodes are used and what they look like(in terms of form factor / development environment), for context? I understand some aspects of chips being used for automobiles , but aren't most compute oriented chips based off ARM designs and such which will be on the newer nodes?

Most of the chips I interact with on a daily basis are 45 nm, some are 28 nm. Currently working automotive, same in aerospace. A lot of this is because embedded flash generally trails several years behind general availability of a node; so if you're designing a µC or similar with embedded flash, you're starting a few years behind; and then you're guaranteeing a 10 or 15 year supply chain, so on average a production p…

Embedded Sensing, Most Automotive, DisplayDrivers are usually mixed signal solutions that don't benefit from process shrinks as much as others. For a long time costs continued falling on legacy (55/90/180) processes, but that has stopped and during Pandemic, and prices shot way up. Some of it is transistor noise scaling (for ADCs/DACs), some is lack of Embedded Flash (as mentioned, though TSMC is now sampling at 28nm), and some die are already so small they're pad limited. In any case a process shrink has significant design costs (and testing/requalification) so if you're not going to make it up with reduced prices (customer) and higher margins (supplier) it's unlikely to happen.

One thing that is driving new development is the lack of 8in capacity and the move to 12in (300mm) due to equipment availability. Most of the installed capacity of 80nm and larger was 8in and you can only really build new 12in fabs.

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#43

Post by ls612 »

addaon wrote: post #15
ckastner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Six months ago it was a global chip shortage that had supply chains backed up around the planet. chip != chip. TSMC manufactures hundreds of products, check out slide 4 of the last quarterly results [1]. "AI" (on 5nm or below) is currently only a smaller share of total capacity. 7nm was only around 50% utilization, compared to 110% a year ago. The recent chip shortage was mostly from 28nm or above. Think automotive…

> The recent chip shortage was mostly from 28nm or above. As a reminder to others, 28 nm was the last planar process; there's a discontinuity in cost moving below 28 nm to FinFET processes. For applications which don't need the last bit of density of power efficiency, 28 nm is likely to stay a sweet spot for a long, long time to come.

With 3nm being the last of the FinFETS will it end up in a similar situation in a decade? Will it be used for a lot of applications like 28nm is now for a long time?

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#44

Post by oneTbrain23 »

lisper wrote: post #2

This makes absolutely no sense. A month ago the headline was "Apple buys every 3 nm chip that TSMC can make for next-gen iPhones and Macs" [1]. Six months ago it was a global chip shortage that had supply chains backed up around the planet. And now it's suddenly "the world's top contract chipmaker grows increasingly nervous about customer demand"? In the middle of a revolution in AI? Something doesn't add up here. ht…

Recession kicks in. Huawei able to do 7nm...but the bulk of chip sales are at 14nm+. China in 2022 end has successfully dominated that market near 80%. The pre-order for Huawei mate 60 already reaching 10m+ just a week ago and projected to reach 60m by 2024 end. Meanwhile China pretty much banned iPhone "subtlely" by forbiding their government servants using that (which can translate to around 100m people if you read between the line meaning ccp members). The euphoric news sensations are mostly CIA Uncle Sam propaganda. If you go into labor market or ask any HR the picture aren't as rosy as what you read on the media. Also, I have very reliable source China already at 3nm just yield is very low for mass market production. They should be able to reach that around Dec 2024 though TSMC probably will announce their 2nm. So 2025 is when China on par with TSMC making the war inevitable around 2026 as many fengshui masters calculated large chaotic event in that year.

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#45

Post by addaon »

ls612 wrote: post #43
addaon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The recent chip shortage was mostly from 28nm or above. As a reminder to others, 28 nm was the last planar process; there's a discontinuity in cost moving below 28 nm to FinFET processes. For applications which don't need the last bit of density of power efficiency, 28 nm is likely to stay a sweet spot for a long, long time to come.

With 3nm being the last of the FinFETS will it end up in a similar situation in a decade? Will it be used for a lot of applications like 28nm is now for a long time?

It comes down to what the cost delta ends up being between FinFETs and GAAFETs, and if that's where the discontinuity is. I suspect that, even though EUV is "solved" now, the solutions are so expensive and sketchy that the DUV/EUV break is more likely to be important, with the final DUV processes being very long-lived. Unclear where this will end up exactly; I'd expect to see mature 7 nm DUV processes, but it's possible that the economics will either favor maturation of DUV + one or two EUV layers, or that a pure DUV 10 nm process with less multi-patterning ends up maturing so much cheaper that that wins out.

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#46

Post by dragontamer »

govg wrote: post #37
addaon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, there will be continuing improvements to 28 nm as a long-lived node; 45 nm was a similarly long-lived node (as are 90 nm and 180 nm, still seeing plenty of use), and today's 40 nm is a heck of a lot more polished than 45 nm was at release, while still allowing trivial design porting.

Could you mention where these chips from older mature nodes are used and what they look like(in terms of form factor / development environment), for context? I understand some aspects of chips being used for automobiles , but aren't most compute oriented chips based off ARM designs and such which will be on the newer nodes?

Microchip just launched the SAM9X60 like three years ago.

600Mhz and 128MB of DDR2 RAM is plenty for many applications. It's pretty much the lowest end processor you can get that will still run a Web server / GUI for easy network dongle. Even if it's on an ancient ARMv5 it still gets the job done today.

-----------

Car and automotive is even lower end in practice. Every button is a uC whose only job is to convert button clicks into LINbus or CAN bus commands for the central computer.

No reason to go below 180nm for a lot of these chips... Well aside from cost. The older 90nm or 180nm nodes are IIRC getting more expensive as the old wafers are drying up (200mm vs modern 300mm).

A lot of cost optimized chips are 40nm to my knowledge, and others are 28nm now. TIs MSPM0 line comes to mind.

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#47

Post by fomine3 »

merb wrote: post #40
ckastner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Six months ago it was a global chip shortage that had supply chains backed up around the planet. chip != chip. TSMC manufactures hundreds of products, check out slide 4 of the last quarterly results [1]. "AI" (on 5nm or below) is currently only a smaller share of total capacity. 7nm was only around 50% utilization, compared to 110% a year ago. The recent chip shortage was mostly from 28nm or above. Think automotive…

But in 2020/2021 we had a chip shortage on 8nm. Of course demand stopped in end 2022/early 2023. of course it was because crypto got corrected downwards. You can clearly see that in the slides

8nm, aka Nvidia Ampere. Now it's being superseded by TSMC 4nm Nvidia Ada Lovelace.

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#48

Post by halJordan »

lisper wrote: post #2

This makes absolutely no sense. A month ago the headline was "Apple buys every 3 nm chip that TSMC can make for next-gen iPhones and Macs" [1]. Six months ago it was a global chip shortage that had supply chains backed up around the planet. And now it's suddenly "the world's top contract chipmaker grows increasingly nervous about customer demand"? In the middle of a revolution in AI? Something doesn't add up here. ht…

I know you've already been clobbered with responses, but i would like to point out how shit Ars has gotten to have messed you up like this.

The enshittification of Ars is the thing that "doesnt add up for you."

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#49

Post by RevEng »

lubesGordi wrote: post #3

" two sources familiar with the matter said." I don't really get how an article can be built off that. Isn't that completely insubstantial on the face of it? Are we supposed to just trust that some reuters journalist is sourcing this info from a credible primary source?

This would all be information that would be under NDA and certainly not to be discussed publicly. Industry insiders leaking information under condition of anonymity is the only reason we have any idea about what goes on behind the carefully curated PR from major corporations. Reputable journalists will confirm with multiple sources and only trust reputable sources. If you don't trust the publisher or journalist, check their previous releases to see how accurate their sources tend to be.

Re: TSMC tells vendors to delay chip equipment deliveries

#50

Post by lisper »

halJordan wrote: post #48
lisper wrote: post #2

This makes absolutely no sense. A month ago the headline was "Apple buys every 3 nm chip that TSMC can make for next-gen iPhones and Macs" [1]. Six months ago it was a global chip shortage that had supply chains backed up around the planet. And now it's suddenly "the world's top contract chipmaker grows increasingly nervous about customer demand"? In the middle of a revolution in AI? Something doesn't add up here. ht…

I know you've already been clobbered with responses, but i would like to point out how shit Ars has gotten to have messed you up like this. The enshittification of Ars is the thing that "doesnt add up for you."

It was Reuters, not Ars, but your point is well taken nonetheless.
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