TSMC Allocation the Next Battleground for Intel, AMD, and Possibly NVIDIA

[RandallFlagg]

So there was some more information recently about this.

So for one, we need to keep in mind Intel 10nm = TSMC 7nm and Intel 7nm = TSMC 5nm. Intel really only needs more 5nm which is almost entirely taken up by Apple this year, and they only need it in very specific scenarios. Given the relatively low volume required for PVC (keep in mind that Intel makes upwards of half a billion CPUs per year) the order is quite small.

Also note that 7nm at Intel is not ready for *volume* production (the 500M CPUs per year kind of volume), but they don't need to get high yields for this.

With that, from the article below :

"So we independently reached out to a couple of sources in Taiwan and got the facts first hand ...

• TSMC's 5nm process is roughly comparable in density to Intel's 7nm process and PVC is only feasible at that density level - so 6nm (which is an optimized process for TSMC 7nm) is out of the question.
• Ponte Vecchio will have multiple SKUs.
• All PVC SKUs will have an IO die made at Intel.
• Compute dies will be made either on Intel's 7nm process or TSMC's 5nm process depending on the exact SKU.
• The Rambo cache will be made in-house at Intel as well.
• The connectivity die (Intel Xe) was originally intended to be built over at TSMC and will remain that way.
• Intel did place an order worth 180,000 wafers on the TSMC 6nm process but it is not related to PVC and is part of their ongoing partnership (Intel has been using TSMC for quite a long time)."

Exclusive: Intel's Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC GPU Will Not Be Manufactured On TSMC's 6nm Process

We were able to confirm some exclusive details about Intel's upcoming Ponte Vecchio GPU.

wccftech.com

 

[Tomorrow]

It's always amusing seeing TSMC lower number node being compared and said to be equal (or worse) to Intel's higher number node. The key difference being that Intel's nodes (however dense they claim to be) are not shipping. Or in case of 10nm are not shipping in volume.

So wich one would i have? A super dense Intel node that is delayed time and time again or a less dense node where i can actually buy products based on that?
The choice is easy.

Intel's problem is that they have this super cool tech "in the labs" but not on shelves: 7nm CPU's. Xe gaming GPU's, PCIe 4.0 Optane SSD's (that they had to develop using AMD's platform lol) etc.

 

[RandallFlagg]

It's always amusing seeing TSMC lower number node being compared and said to be equal (or worse) to Intel's higher number node. The key difference being that Intel's nodes (however dense they claim to be) are not shipping. Or in case of 10nm are not shipping in volume.
...

Volume relative to sales you mean? Intel sells 9x more CPUs than AMD, and in the laptop space that gap is even higher.

Why that matters - if 10% of Intel's volume is 10nm, that would mean there are as many Ice Lake CPUs being sold than all of AMDs CPUs combined - desktops and laptops. Keep in mind the laptop space is bigger than desktop.

I do see a lot of Ice Lake CPUs on the thin and light laptops now. They are easy to find if you know what to look for, and are not particularly expensive.