Comment by threatripper
4 days ago
If we assume that intel gets successful with 18A with their x86 processors, would they even have the money to finance the node after that? And the node after that which gets exponentially more expensive?
In the past x86 raked in enough money to burn a lot of it on new fab tech but non-x86 has grown immensely and floods TSMC with money. The problem for intel is that their fab tech was fitted to their processor architecture and vice versa. It made sense in the past but in the future it might not. For the processor business it may be better to use TSMC for production. For the fab it may be necessary to manufacture for many customers and take a premium for being based in a country in need. So, a split-up may be inevitable and this fabbing a competitive ARM chip surely helps in attracting more customers. Customers who may pay a premium for political and security reasons.
Apple, Nvidia and US govt can provide the required funds if they have confidence in its ability to deliver. These companies will benefit from breaking current monopoly of TSMC.
Samsung is already in a much better position for this. They have external customers and experience facilitating them. Unlike Intel's track record which doesn't inspire confidence at all.
Intel has something Samsung doesn't. It's a US company operating mostly on US soil so the US government has a vested interest to keep this strategic asset going for as long as possible.
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> Apple, Nvidia and US govt can provide the required funds if they have confidence in its ability to deliver.
Given Apple's history with Intel's ability to deliver, I'm guessing the confidence there isn't high.
Are you referring to 5G radio modems or another chip?
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I wouldn't count on either to save Intel as it still is (i.e with the fab business still attached to the CPU/GPU business). While it's true that having Intel fabs as a second source would be nice for them to alleviate the dependency on TSMC, they are also competing with Intel on the CPU/GPU side.
My guess is, they're gonna let Intel rot a little further while doing their best to pressure for Intel to split off their fab biz (as AMD had done back then), and then invest just in the fab.
> Apple, Nvidia and US govt can provide the required funds
When the first tough about investing is to go to big corporations and the goverment instead of going to investors is a telling about how nowadays the economy works.
I love that the Orange guy has opened the door to the nationalization of big tech. I hope that the next president is bolder on this regard. If all these companies depend on monopolies to exists, they should be state owned/controlled.
Yep, that's exactly what they did with TSMC. Foundries don't just build massive production lines and hope someone will use them, even TSMC.
Yeah, everyone is focused on TSMC as the company with the secret sauce, but really it’s Apple. Whichever foundry Apple goes with gets the majority of leading edge transistor volume.
Amazon and Google probably as well?