Monday, September 10th 2018
TSMC to Build Intel 14nm Processors and Chipsets
Try to wrap your head around Intel contracting TSMC to build some of its processors! With its own 14 nanometer silicon fabrication nodes under stress from manufacturing several generations of Core and Xeon processors simultaneously, leading to market shortages, Intel is looking to contract TSMC to manufacture some of its 14 nm products. Among these are certain models of its desktop processors, and several 300-series chipsets, including the H310, which are currently fabbed on Intel's last 22 nm node, that's probably being converted to 14 nm.
The TSMC contract appears to be moving faster than expected, with the Taiwanese fab eager to demonstrate its competence to Intel and secure future orders as the company is closer than ever in going fully or partly fabless. According to industry observers, Intel is staring at a 1:2 supply-demand ratio, for the countless chip it's building on 14 nm; which may have forced it to contract some of these chip designs to TSMC. Motherboard vendors expect Intel to sort out its supply issues by the end of 2018, with big help from TSMC.
Source:
DigiTimes
The TSMC contract appears to be moving faster than expected, with the Taiwanese fab eager to demonstrate its competence to Intel and secure future orders as the company is closer than ever in going fully or partly fabless. According to industry observers, Intel is staring at a 1:2 supply-demand ratio, for the countless chip it's building on 14 nm; which may have forced it to contract some of these chip designs to TSMC. Motherboard vendors expect Intel to sort out its supply issues by the end of 2018, with big help from TSMC.
29 Comments on TSMC to Build Intel 14nm Processors and Chipsets
Well, chipsets is more easy to believe, but Xeon CPUs.
TSMC 10nm processes are denser than Intel 14nm++, and TSMC 16nm is inferior.
also TSMC had that ransomeware/malware ordeal, and now intel is going with them? even moar vulnerabilities! willintel keep their other stuff isolated or what? this is going to be a security nightmare for both parties.
A few years ago Intel was hyper-worried that its 14nm would be in severe capacity excesses. Now it turns out 5 generations of 14nm has turned it into severe shortages instead.
Intel's 14nm node should be the most mature in human history. Why are they having so many problems? Why are they outsourcing production? Only one logical conclusion: Intel's process tech is regressing. But how? Why?
Actually, this is a move to increase ASP.
Truth is, 1. Demand is rising, like it or not. It's golden time for their sales department now, and they will probably have another record revenue this quater.2.They are stocking Whiskey Lakes for release. 3.They are sampling Cascade Lake-SP.
I wonder how good is the chip made by TSMC