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TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

anandtech.com

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Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#71

Post by ksec »

Sigh.

There are things like PMICs that gets little to no benefits by moving to 28nm. I doubt that will happen. But there are also plenty of designs that are stuck using older mature node, that gets some benefits but has no financial incentive in doing so. Or will require some specialty nodes that is not on offer, which TSMC are currently working on. ( Compared to what comments here suggest they dont give a toss about it. )

So the whole thing is basically about balancing Fab capacity. And there is no better time to do it. You are either stuck waiting for capacity in a node or you move to 2xnm node where new GigaFab are being built and has much better capacity planning. Do you want your $thousands to even $million product to be on hold because of a ( what used to be ) $2 chip cant be Fabbed?

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#72

Post by waste_monk »

smoldesu wrote: post #45
googlryas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's scary - I have a < 1 yr old Tesla model Y and it is embarrassing how underpowered the tablet that controls basically every part of the car is.

FWIW, Tesla is one of the few companies that actually put decent processors in their cars: in lieu of a cruddy, off-the-shelf ARM CPU, they use Intel (and more recently, Ryzen) x86-based machines. Their performance relative to the Cortex processors running in competitors is enormous, it must be slow due to the volume of processes Tesla is actually running onboard.

Isn't one of the big problems with Tesla vehicles that they use COTS hardware?

I'm sure I saw something about how they used commercial-grade touch screen instead of automotive grade, so they feel far nicer / more responsive than other cars but fail much faster as they aren't designed to handle repeated heating/cooling cycles that cars experience.

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#73

Post by erosenbe0 »

Strom wrote: post #64
erosenbe0 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful the story you heard is correct. Too many mainstream articles on semiconductors are just vague, uncheckable facts combined with filler that seems to have been suggested by Intel's PR department, even when Intel is totally irrelevant. Intel needs delicious subsidies!

> Intel is totally irrelevant Intel still has the fastest chip in the world with the i9-12900KS. They are also the second largest semiconductor company in the world by revenue, only just last year barely passed by Samsung. [1] I know Intel is not hip, but to call them irrelevant is some serious reality distortion. -- [1] https://www.eetasia.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/04/I...

Sorry. I was responding in the context of automotive. There have been so many articles about the automotive chip shortage mentioning Intel. It's seems like filler by uninformed journalists. Intel is not a top dog in auto and most of Intel's auto qualified parts are in the Altera line actually made by TSMC.

Intel is still very very relevant overall to server, networking, and consumer space. Huge revenues!

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#74

Post by iancmceachern »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #69
gbear605 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP is saying that TSMC is saying “Okay auto manufacturers, we don’t want to manufacture chips that meet all of your requirements when we have so much order volume, so you’ll have to drop the requirements or find a different fab.” So the auto industry making their own fabs is exactly what TSMC wants them to do.

And the automakers will likely balk at spending many dozens of billions of capital outside of their core competency. Since all the other legacy fabs are also at capacity for the next few years.

It's rapidly becoming part of their core competency, no different than steel panel manufacturing.

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#75

Post by exmadscientist »

variaga wrote: post #20
tiffanyh wrote: post #9

Dumb question: if something is being manufactured on 60nm today, can you not just take the same design and start manufacturing it on 28nm? Or do you need to literally redesign the entire circuit?

In almost all cases, switching processes means a complete redesign. 28nm vs 60nm isn't just "we can draw smaller parts now". Lots of other things (silicon doping levels, choice of metal for the routing layers, operating voltage levels, thickness of the insulating layers, ...) change too, requiring design changes to keep the old design working the same way it used to. A very small set of processes allow one way reuse…

Also, 28nm pays a huge price in mask complexity etc over 40/65nm. So its cost per area is much higher. This works out to a win if your area gets smaller... or a massive loss if it doesn't. And if you just draw the same features with a different process, guess what, your chip cost just doubled (or whatever it is, depending on the particular processes) on the "more cost effective" process.

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#78

Post by Strom »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #73
Strom wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intel is totally irrelevant Intel still has the fastest chip in the world with the i9-12900KS. They are also the second largest semiconductor company in the world by revenue, only just last year barely passed by Samsung. [1] I know Intel is not hip, but to call them irrelevant is some serious reality distortion. -- [1] https://www.eetasia.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/04/I...

Sorry. I was responding in the context of automotive. There have been so many articles about the automotive chip shortage mentioning Intel. It's seems like filler by uninformed journalists. Intel is not a top dog in auto and most of Intel's auto qualified parts are in the Altera line actually made by TSMC. Intel is still very very relevant overall to server, networking, and consumer space. Huge revenues!

Oh yeah, I've noticed that as well. Mainstream media loves talking about the general chip shortage and investment into 5nm and 3nm fabs in the same article, whether it is Intel or TSMC. The media (and the general population) seems to be fully convinced that a chip is a chip.

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#79

Post by gbear605 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #69
gbear605 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP is saying that TSMC is saying “Okay auto manufacturers, we don’t want to manufacture chips that meet all of your requirements when we have so much order volume, so you’ll have to drop the requirements or find a different fab.” So the auto industry making their own fabs is exactly what TSMC wants them to do.

And the automakers will likely balk at spending many dozens of billions of capital outside of their core competency. Since all the other legacy fabs are also at capacity for the next few years.

If the auto manufacturers don’t want chips to be part of their core competencies, then they’ll probably need to go back to building cars like they did thirty years ago.

Re: TSMC to customers: It's time to stop using older nodes and move to 28nm

#80

Post by PeterisP »

awestroke wrote: post #38
smoldesu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it means there will be even worse touchscreens because now automakers can't afford silicon that might actually power a tablet.

How can they not afford a 300 dollar tablet in a 40k dollar car?

A 300 dollar tablet dies quickly in the automotive environment with outdoors-like variation in temperature and humidity. Tablet manufacturers literally write in their product sheets "do not leave the device in a car or it may get damaged"; if you leave an iPad in direct sun for a month and it dies, it's expensive for you, if the same happens to a car console, that's expensive for the manufacturer which has to repair it under warranty.

The temperature range for iPad listed by Apple is 0 to +35 C for operation and -20 to +45 C for storage. The required temperature range for electronics on automotive dashboards (which may be exposed to direct sun) is -40 to 90 C, which effectively requires different materials, which means you can't even reuse most components.

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