Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is one more player joining that small club, Huawei
I was under the impression they had their chips manufactured by SMIC.
Exactly, the fourth player quickly catching up to the others is SMIC.
The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
251–260 of 282 posts
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, the current king of single core Geekbench is the M3 chips. Even the base M3 scores as high as the i9-14900K and higher than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, at less than half their TDPs.
>FWIW, the current king of single core Geekbench is the M3 chips Are we reading the same scores? https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/singlecore
Besides
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, the current king of single core Geekbench is the M3 chips. Even the base M3 scores as high as the i9-14900K and higher than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, at less than half their TDPs.
>FWIW, the current king of single core Geekbench is the M3 chips Are we reading the same scores? https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/singlecore
Besides quoting the chart, have a look at the tests themselves. I have commented quite a times why (some of) the tests are not well designed/executed.
Personally, I do not consider geekbench a viable kit.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only three are Samsung, Intel, and TSMC. Idk why going on with Intel but Samsung should BSs doing better but that institutional knowledge that TSMC has is crazy. They all technically invest in asml that makes the machines. If I had to redo my education I’d get into electrical engineering just for this.
Eh, the process engineers I've talked to don't have a great life, at least here in the US. It seems inevitable you end up perpetually on call for some machine, and I don't mean some type of machine, I mean unit #23 over in fab #4 and then that's your baby for years. The pay is considerable worse than software too. I almost went to get a CE degree because I find it all so fascinating but ultimately I'm glad I didn't.
If you want the best people to work in an area you need to pay them. I'm surprised given the possible returns these aren't seven figure jobs.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they “can’t make the chips fast enough” being TSMC’s second highest volume customer behind Apple and probably second in priority, what chance does Microsoft have getting enough of TSMCs capacity?
It blows my mind that not only are Apple, Nvidia, and all other enormous "chip makers" fabless... but there's ONE single company actually making the majority of all their chips. Why aren't any other companies entering this space? TSMC's growth and profits are immense, it's not like the market couldn't bear more competitors. Also, the current situation is geopolitical insanity. It feels like China and the U.S. are on…
> Why aren't any other companies entering this space?
Because it would take over a decade to build a comparable chip fab and thats assuming you had unlimited cash to throw at it.
You'd be spending billions with zero revenue for a decade and no guarantees it'll be anything as close to as good as TSMC's setup. Try finding someone willing to invest in that and it becomes clear why theres not more chip fabs out there.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It takes billions and billions of dollars Apple and Microsoft are trillion dollar companies ( both nearing $3 trillion market caps ). They can afford it. Heck they have the balance sheet to acquire both tsmc and samsung if either were up for sale. I thought Apple was moving towards being a full-stack company. Where all the hardware and software is developed in-house. If anyone has the resources, it is apple.
> I thought Apple was moving towards being a full-stack company. Where all the hardware and software is developed in-house. If anyone has the resources, it is apple. Having a modern chip fab binds an insane amount of capital, and makes you much more vulnerable in case of market turbulences. This is exactly a reason why there exist people who like to claim that Intel should spin off their fabs.
Depends how those market turbulences occur, for example a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will be a disaster for Apple.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only three are Samsung, Intel, and TSMC. Idk why going on with Intel but Samsung should BSs doing better but that institutional knowledge that TSMC has is crazy. They all technically invest in asml that makes the machines. If I had to redo my education I’d get into electrical engineering just for this.
There is one more player joining that small club, Huawei
Presumably only for their own and Chinese brands however as I can't see anyone letting them do fabication for major players outside of China. They've also got a huge hurdle given they cant buy the standard equipment every chip fab needs owing to it all being produced by a single company.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
It blows my mind that not only are Apple, Nvidia, and all other enormous "chip makers" fabless... but there's ONE single company actually making the majority of all their chips. Why aren't any other companies entering this space? TSMC's growth and profits are immense, it's not like the market couldn't bear more competitors. Also, the current situation is geopolitical insanity. It feels like China and the U.S. are on…
And TSMC uses the ASML fabrication machines made by… one company. Basically two places are responsible for all of those chips. Intel really needs to get back in the game. Hopefully that’s still on the table.
Even if Intel could spin up a bunch of fabs competitive with tsmc, they'd still be competing for asml's capacity. We just can't massively scale up leading edge fab capacity.
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#259It was only a matter of time. Google announced theirs years ago, Amazon announced theirs last year. Right now NVIDIA has the lead because they have the better software, but they can't make the chips fast enough. Will be interesting to see if their better software continues to keep them in the lead or if people are more interested in getting the capacity in any form.
> Amazon announced theirs last year
Amazon has had Graviton chips (after they acquired Annapurna Labs) since 2018. Or do you mean specifically AI-oriented chips?
Re: The first two custom silicon chips designed by Microsoft for its cloud
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they “can’t make the chips fast enough” being TSMC’s second highest volume customer behind Apple and probably second in priority, what chance does Microsoft have getting enough of TSMCs capacity?
It blows my mind that not only are Apple, Nvidia, and all other enormous "chip makers" fabless... but there's ONE single company actually making the majority of all their chips. Why aren't any other companies entering this space? TSMC's growth and profits are immense, it's not like the market couldn't bear more competitors. Also, the current situation is geopolitical insanity. It feels like China and the U.S. are on…
> It feels like China and the U.S. are on a path to war in the next decade or so
IMO, MAD (mutually assured destruction - if a nuclear power start a war with another nuclear power, both will probably end up destroyed by nukes) makes the prospects of that highly unlikely.