Friday, December 3rd 2021
Intel Negotiates 3nm Allocation with TSMC Even as Pat Gelsinger Cautions Against Investing in Taiwan
Intel is reportedly in talks with TSMC to secure foundry allocation to meet its product roadmap execution. The company is sending an executive delegation to meet with TSMC later this month, to secure foundry capacity for the N3 (3 nm) silicon fabrication node, and ensure that Intel's allocation isn't affected by other customers such as Apple. As part of its IDM 2.0 strategy, Intel has decided to build its products essentially as multi-chip modules with each block of IP built on a silicon fabrication node most optimal to it, so the company maximizes cutting-edge foundry nodes only on the technology that benefits from it the most. N3 will play a vital role with logic/compute tiles in products bound for 2023, as N3 hits critical volume in the first half of the year.
In related news, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, stressed on the importance for American chip designers to seek out semiconductor manufacturing in America, and cautioned against investing in Taiwan (without naming TSMC). This comes in the wake of geopolitical uncertainty in the region. In response to this statement issued to DigiTimes, TSMC CEO Mark Liu downplayed the matter, and said that Gelsinger's statement wasn't worth responding to, and that he doesn't slander industry colleagues. TSMC and Samsung have each announced multi-billion Dollar foundry investments in the US, in attempts to make the global semiconductor supply chains resilient to any security situation that may emerge in East Asia.
Sources:
DigiTimes, Chiakokhua (Twitter), Nikkei Asia
In related news, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, stressed on the importance for American chip designers to seek out semiconductor manufacturing in America, and cautioned against investing in Taiwan (without naming TSMC). This comes in the wake of geopolitical uncertainty in the region. In response to this statement issued to DigiTimes, TSMC CEO Mark Liu downplayed the matter, and said that Gelsinger's statement wasn't worth responding to, and that he doesn't slander industry colleagues. TSMC and Samsung have each announced multi-billion Dollar foundry investments in the US, in attempts to make the global semiconductor supply chains resilient to any security situation that may emerge in East Asia.
53 Comments on Intel Negotiates 3nm Allocation with TSMC Even as Pat Gelsinger Cautions Against Investing in Taiwan
TSMC doesn't need Intel, it's Intel that needs TSMC right now.
Intel isn't doing any of those so, yeah, they might get some supply from TSMC. But TMSC will prefer to give more support and allocation to their first hands partner like AMD and Apple.
They have a very American mind thinking they are dominant and they can set the market rules. They think they can intimidate TMSC.
Good luck with that. TMSC is selling every wafer they can produce.
Taiwanese will tell you the situation with China is precarious. The whole world says it all the time. We just saw John Cena issue an international apology for calling Taiwan a 'country'.
Gelsinger says it and "LEARN WHEN TO SHUT UP PAT"
Liu CAN'T respond to Gelsinger's statement, because if he did, China would not appreciate it. :)
So yes, his statement is for sure not worth responding to.
Kind of amazing if anyone is even buying their pitch when they aren't even doing the majority of their main business on their own lines. I think that's the real reason they opened their fabs. They aren't planning on using them. They know better. They've seen what happens when they do.
You don't want all your chips to be manufactured in a single political hot area. I am not saying that war will erupt there or not, but if it does then it will affect the whole world.
He did say that Samsung and TSMC are getting large subsidies from their home countries and that isn't wrong. Not really slandering either.
Honestly, if you are going to invest large quantities of public money(tax payer) then you should it in a way that benefits the tax payer and doing so to your local companies is the best way to keep wealth in the country. And that's true for S.Korea, Taiwan or the USA.
Eh, Pat.Butthurt? No. Laughable, and every time a tremendous show of weakness.
There are no US fabs that can touch 5nm and there are only high-end 2 Fab companies in the world - Samsung and TSMC. All of US chip companies rely on them. There's only one company ASML, that makes UV lithography machines at that level.
We are absolutely in a state of weakness, which is what Pat is saying.