TSMC's 3 nm Node at Near 50 Percent Utilisation, Other Nodes Seeing Lower Demand

[The Von Matrices]

What math? Their factory is underutilized, anything not utilized 100% means loss for them. You don't earn on unmade silicon, you pay salaries to people and logistics that do nothing.

No, there are costs that scale with production (electricity, chemicals, silicon ingots, etc.). If you don't produce chips, you don't need to buy as many of these supplies. If the trend is long-term, the company can layoff workers to save even more money. And then there's the reputational aspect to it where having idle production is better than the PR fallout incurred from raising then later dropping prices. The main part of the company that suffers from idle capacity (other than investors) is the R&D budget but dropping prices isn't going to give the R&D department any more money either.

 

[Ferrum Master]

No, there are costs that scale with production (electricity, chemicals, silicon ingots, etc.). If you don't produce chips, you don't need to buy as many of these supplies. If the trend is long-term, the company can layoff workers to save even more money. And then there's the reputational aspect to it where having idle production is better than the PR fallout incurred from raising then later dropping prices. The main part of the company that suffers from idle capacity (other than investors) is the R&D budget but dropping prices isn't going to give the R&D department any more money either.

You cannot lay off the AMSL equipment you just bought, probably also for a inflated price, it has to pay itself off on that tech node in that time bracket, as general improvements and new tech subnode matures again and those instruments change/upgrade all the time. About layoffs, let's not be so hasty as such personnel could cause more problems when laid off than good, including know how. It ain't that simple as laying off a Google generic coder responsible for making daily doodles. They already had "incidents".

Considering supplies, they most probably have them already stocked as much they can as they don't become cheaper and because of the war there are obvious difficulties.

Also it is known for fabs that it costs way more to turn on the gears for fewer orders than fully loaded and same type of design, it is only 50%, that's really a tragic number. Basically greed backfired, nothing else, it will hurt them.

 

[RandallFlagg]

No, there are costs that scale with production (electricity, chemicals, silicon ingots, etc.). If you don't produce chips, you don't need to buy as many of these supplies. If the trend is long-term, the company can layoff workers to save even more money. And then there's the reputational aspect to it where having idle production is better than the PR fallout incurred from raising then later dropping prices. The main part of the company that suffers from idle capacity (other than investors) is the R&D budget but dropping prices isn't going to give the R&D department any more money either.

He's saying there is a time-decay value for investments on these nodes. If it takes 5 years for the market to recover, the node will likely be useless by then.

I'm not sure how much I believe this report though. It contradicts other reports.

Apple Orders Entire Supply of TSMC's 3nm Chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

Apple has reportedly secured all available orders for N3, TSMC's first-generation 3-nanometer process that is likely to be used in the upcoming...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Muniix]

China is producing their own chips, just not with the latest and greatest technology since ASML won't deliver them EUV and better machinery.

China has already developed its EUV light source with higher power capability using SSMB steady state microbunching

why can't we all just get along eh mate?

Because the neocons in Washington are war mongers working for the Military industry complex as are the journos pushing war

No, there are costs that scale with production (electricity, chemicals, silicon ingots, etc.). If you don't produce chips, you don't need to buy as many of these supplies. If the trend is long-term, the company can layoff workers to save even more money. And then there's the reputational aspect to it where having idle production is better than the PR fallout incurred from raising then later dropping prices. The main part of the company that suffers from idle capacity (other than investors) is the R&D budget but dropping prices isn't going to give the R&D department any more money either.

You can't sack them replace those highly technical workforce of PhD's, wow how to say you have no clue, well done.

You cannot lay off the AMSL equipment you just bought, probably also for a inflated price, it has to pay itself off on that tech node in that time bracket, as general improvements and new tech subnode matures again and those instruments change/upgrade all the time. About layoffs, let's not be so hasty as such personnel could cause more problems when laid off than good, including know how. It ain't that simple as laying off a Google generic coder responsible for making daily doodles. They already had "incidents".

Considering supplies, they most probably have them already stocked as much they can as they don't become cheaper and because of the war there are obvious difficulties.

Also it is known for fabs that it costs way more to turn on the gears for fewer orders than fully loaded and same type of design, it is only 50%, that's really a tragic number. Basically greed backfired, nothing else, it will hurt them.

Click to expand...

You can't sack them replace those highly technical workforce of PhD's, wow how to say you have no clue, well done.

 

[P4-630]

China has already developed its EUV light source with higher power capability using SSMB steady state microbunching

As of 2022, ASML Holding is the only company who produces and sells EUV systems for chip production, targeting 5 nm and 3 nm process nodes.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TumbleGeorge]

As of 2022, ASML Holding is the only company who produces and sells EUV systems for chip production, targeting 5 nm and 3 nm process nodes.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This might be not problem

 

[stimpy88]

Time to lower your prices then. You got fat and greedy.

 

[Muniix]

How much is that because of the China ban?

Loosing Huawei, that's gotta hurt.

China is producing their own chips, just not with the latest and greatest technology since ASML won't deliver them EUV and better machinery.

China has developed its own EUV light source using SSMB steady state microbunching supporting high power.

What math? Their factory is underutilized, anything not utilized 100% means loss for them. You don't earn on unmade silicon, you pay salaries to people and logistics that do nothing.

The problem is they got caught also in the bitcoin bubble demise and as usual for Asian companies, they a damn slow to adapt to it, bureaucrats, they sometimes even top Soviet habits, but hey... PCR is near lol. They didn't realize it is over, NVidia strongly signaled with making silicon at Samsung that the games are over and TSMC cannot play the monopoly card also, as they wanted larger piece of the pie. Soon many fabs will become operational and let us see how the greed will pay off.

The objective historical statistics should be normalized without silicon made for crypto. Then the real consumer device market demand number should align as it should, with increase actually, yes. Covid did spark some numbers up, but not that drastically as you wish... I suspect those numbers got mixed with crypto and some(nvidia) did that on purpose. There were need for basic laptops and PCs for school/work etc but why the heck why that would need overpriced RTX cards to have online lectures or work meetings? For RTX crap voice as some leather jacket tried to upsell as next best thing since sliced bread? The amount of farming was huge everywhere, people only grasp a small part of it from media and think that it doesn't happen around them, but it did. TSMC suffers from it, they are slow to adapt. That was known already more than half year ago and still they act like princesses.

China's industries turn on a dime, reconfiguring a factory happens at near light speed and so it seems Russia had capability to turn on huge munitions production like flipping a pancake.

As of 2022, ASML Holding is the only company who produces and sells EUV systems for chip production, targeting 5 nm and 3 nm process nodes.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Try doing some reading first buddy, you'll see SSMB is real and integration is well under way. They also have domestic developed 5/3nm optics. With China speed this will not take long, you've clearly never worked in China high tech RnD.

 

[P4-630]

Loosing Huawei, that's gotta hurt.


China has developed its own EUV light source using SSMB steady state microbunching supporting high power.


China's industries turn on a dime, reconfiguring a factory happens at near light speed and so it seems Russia had capability to turn on huge munitions production like flipping a pancake.


Try doing some reading first buddy, you'll see SSMB is real and integration is well under way. They also have domestic developed 5/3nm optics. With China speed this will not take long, you've clearly never worked in China high tech RnD.

Well buddy, I'm not that really impressed what chips China is producing so far....

 

[medi01]

Karma is a bitch. One of the reasons for price hikes dowstream TSMC, is TSMCs greed.

You can't make a point about "it's just new process is becoming more expensive" and shovel record profits in the background.

The worst bit here is with lack of good alternatives to TSMC. Essentially we are in Buldozer era, with TSMc playing Intel.

I'm not sure how much I believe this report though

Don't believe any report with "Apple" in it.

 

[Muniix]

Well buddy, I'm not that really impressed what chips China is producing so far....

You're forgetting China speed they've already developed their own EUV light source and 5/3nm optics. SSMB steady state microbunching provides EUV at higher power and rate.

 

[P4-630]

You're forgetting China speed they've already developed their own EUV light source and 5/3nm optics. SSMB steady state microbunching provides EUV at higher power and rate.

Sure....

 

[R0H1T]

Karma is a bitch. One of the reasons for price hikes dowstream TSMC, is TSMCs greed.

You can't blame it all on TSMC, the likes of Intel/AMD/Nvidia/QC & of course Apple are to be blamed just as much! The heck is Nvidia doing right now with GA104 dies ~ culling them to sell a midrange 3060 instead of selling much cheaper xx70-80 cards

 

[P4-630]

You're forgetting China speed they've already developed their own EUV light source and 5/3nm optics. SSMB steady state microbunching provides EUV at higher power and rate.

If they really were successfully ahead of ASML they wouldn't be interested in buying machines from ASML now would they.....

 

[TumbleGeorge]

If they really were successfully ahead of ASML they wouldn't be interested in buying machines from ASML now would they.....

Yes, that seems logical. Right? I don't think anyone would praise that logic if they even tried to think about it a little.

 

[medi01]

You can't blame it all on TSMC

I can very well check their spike in income and blame it on TSMC.

Intel's margins dropped, revenue dropped, income dropped, leave poor Intel alone...

The heck is Nvidia doing right

The Leather Man's greed needs a scale of its own, but to answer your question: the same shit it was doing for at least a decade.

 

[RandallFlagg]

This might be not problem

Actually, if you really look into it, you don't *have* to have EUV to do 7nm, 5nm, or even 3nm.

You can do it with DUV and multi-patterning.

You just keep getting worse and worse yields.

This is precisely the issue Intel had for 2 years with using their older imaging systems for Intel 7. They actually had N7 class chips in 2019, but the yield was horrific. It took them two more years long to manage to get Intel 7 working in volume on DUV.

It's basically ramming square pegs into round holes.