And the machines that makes these "US" chips... where do they come from?
AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
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Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#222What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
Intel is a great example of the fact that between stupidity and low-integrity behavior as a default, the people in charge fuck up in ways that the man on the street would get right.
Defense is starting to get a blank check with fairly bipartisan support for the first time in at least 30-40 years and it's centered on semiconductor supply chains. There has never been a better time to secure the fucking funding, have ASML send twice as many people as they already have, and power through it. The market is whatever you want and the margins are whatever you want: in a functioning system? You fucking do it.
And while I will believe that Intel has suffered serious attrition in key posts, there's no way that the meta-knowledge of how to debug "we don't have the fabs running right, who do we hire, what so we need to give them to get it done" has evaporated in 5-10 years from the singular source of this institutional muscle memory in the history of the world.
The failing here is more like a failing in courage, or stamina, grit, something. It's a failure of the will to do the right thing for both the shareholders and the country.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
A big part of AMD's turnaround was going fabless. I think the big fear here is that if Intel does the same, there won't be much competition left in the fab space. Is Samsung still competitive with TSMC?
> A big part of AMD's turnaround was going fabless. Part of it, sure, but they were still fabless and in the ditch before Zen. Unless you're referring to going with TSMC instead of GloFo as going fabless.
They had contracts which forced them to buy Global Foundries even lasting into Zen 2 (I believe they used it with the IO die).
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Intel is more than just fabs. AMD spun off digital foundry forever ago and just uses TSMC, no reason Intel couldn’t do the same. At this point their fabs are a liability. They have a new leader who’s from a semiconductor manufacturing background so I have some faith they’ll give up on the pursuit of next gen fabs and focus instead on their IP. There’s a huge opportunity in their GPU segment. They’ve gone from a joke…
> At this point their fabs are a liability. Intel outsourcing their core product line is also a massive liability. It's just a different kind of liability. I personally think the world's reliance on TSMC indicates that fabs are critically important infrastructure. And operating a world class one provides a company with a ton of leverage with governments and other businesses.
I think it also shows that fabs who only have one customer (ie, Intel) aren't as competitive because they can't provide as much scale and are more sensitive to that customer's success.
Intel's fab would be doing much better if it spun it out a while ago and was making Intel, Nvidia, and Apple chips right now.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
They just farmed out the compute section of Nova Lake to TSMC which is a sad statement (probably a good business decision, though).
They just farmed out the compute section of Nova Lake to TSMC which is a sad statement Apple farms out its displays to Samsung, a competitor. It's just how business is done.
Apple does not nor have they ever made displays. Intel on the other most definitely makes CPUs. That's the difference.
Apple just recently moved back into the hardware space after farming everything out since the iMac gen2 days. Hell, I remember the Mac clones. I miss Power Computing.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#226The article doesn’t say why the chips have a cost difference. The wafer cost of advanced nodes is ~$30k per wafer. Is the wafer cost different or is the yield different and hence the reason for the variance of 5-20%? All else being equal (same die size/design on same process) I suspect that a large part of the cost difference is yielded cost due to maturity of operations at the Arizona fab. Taiwan has had many years…
The article quotes the CEO saying yield is comparable:
>TSMC’s new Arizona plant is already comparable with those in Taiwan when it comes to the measure of yield — the amount of good chips a production run produces per batch — Su told the audience at the forum.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#227What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
I'm not into hardware but I remember when AMD was sneered at, and all real CPUs were Intel. Then Ryzen happened. My meta conclusion is that its super hard to tell when someone is done, and it can change quickly. Or not. Sometimes it if looks like terminal decline, it simply is terminal decline.
AMDs fab in Dresden was highly respected as the most efficient fab in the world back in it's day. AMD really took off after they purchased NexGen and rolled out the K6.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#228What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
Yes. I can give you a non-technical answer, since HN is ostensibly business as well.
Intel fired the one CEO that spoke both engineer and business, and Gelsinger could have been their Lisa Su. They fired the only talented CEO they've had for years.
This will be fatal.
Gelsinger was the scapegoat for 20+ years of inability to compete with foreign companies, no matter how much money was poured into them. They used American exceptionalism as a cover to defraud shareholders and any government that invested in them. They used the relationship of AIPAC and Congress to build a fab and R&D lab in Israel (inserting yourself into global politics to make a buck is always spicy) at low cost to them.
Taiwan became the capitol of electrical engineering in the world, and is a shining example of how to survive and thrive in a post-war era, and it absolutely shows. They caught up to Intel and zoomed right past.
Gelsinger's crime was try to do what AMD did: they didn't have a fab that could make their chip BUT they had a fab that made chips that people wanted AND the foundry could take that work and survive if they legally split. GloFo is now the third largest semi foundry in the world today, and when it was part of AMD, it very much wasn't; I can't quite remember, but 5th or 6th? Something like that. GloFo is #3, TSMC is #1, Samsung is #2, and Intel could very well be that #4, and push out UMC (#4) and SMIC (#5) in the secondary chip foundry market.
Gelsinger could have split Intel into Intel and IFoundry or something, and Intel could have profited on IFoundry taking off and taking external work. Right now, IFoundry can't compete on top nodes, but _could_ steal work from all other fabs for secondary larger nodes. Having a working 12 nm competitor as well as a working 7nm competitor is big business, which Intel currently has _ZERO_ of (since they don't take external contracts). Gelsinger was big on this potential revenue stream.
Gelsinger's other crime was being part of the negotiation between TSMC and the Biden administration for the CHIPs act money: part of what built the TSMC fab right next door to Intel's in Arizona was Biden and Intel money. Intel was investing in it's future by playing the American exceptionalism card again, but now in everybody's favor. We _all_ benefit from this. Gelsinger wanted to have _somebody_ fab the chips, and if its good enough for AMD, Apple, and Nvidia, its good enough for Intel.
There is zero indication that GAA 20A is ready, and Intel has a history of having leadership that says such-and-such is ready for it to either come out several gens later, or just vanish off the roadmap. Gelsinger's other OTHER crime is admitting to this and changing the direction of the Titanic before it hits the iceberg, for the CEO that replaced him just to steer right back into the iceberg.
I have _zero_ faith in Intel's leadership if they can't bring Gelsinger back. Tan, Gelsinger's replacement, is a former board member. I have no reason to think he is not just going to further poison the company. Tan has not spoken about any plan that indicates he understands Intel is not competitive, Intel cannot competitively make 100% of the tiles, that Intel's Foveros tech stack is extremely valuable because the only truly comparative alternative is TSMC's CoWoS tech family and superior to it and people are willing to throw money at that problem but they can't license it as long as IFoundry is part of Intel.
Intel is cooked imnsho.
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#229What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
I find it somewhat ironic that many years ago HP’s PA-RISC chips were fabbed at Intel because contractually they had to supply chips due Itanium not yet taping out.
But maybe it was more of an early foreshadowing. I had a housemate that worked on their internal CAD tools and it also sounded like a bit of a mess with NIH syndrome. (20+ years ago)
Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more
#230What I really want to know, from someone who does know: Is Intel cooked? Like, will they be able to manufacture chips that compete with TSMC? They used to be a crown-jewel of US tech. But it seems like every time I read the news, they are announcing a delay or shutting down some product.
Intel needs to course correct. I live in the area and know a LOT of intel fab workers. The issue is not the workers: Intel has been captured by corporate raiders and toxic management. They aren't interested in making chips or an innovative company. They just want to squeeze the juice out of the company until it is dry. That is why it is so bad.
Does that mean Intel needs to go private?