Comment by smw
13 hours ago
> but you do realize the US has on shore cutting edge fabs, right?
No they don't. Even the US partnerships with TSMC aren't cutting edge.
TSMC and arguably Samsung have cutting edge fabs, no one else.
13 hours ago
> but you do realize the US has on shore cutting edge fabs, right?
No they don't. Even the US partnerships with TSMC aren't cutting edge.
TSMC and arguably Samsung have cutting edge fabs, no one else.
The Intel CMOS process 18A, which they have launched a few weeks ago, is the first after almost a decade that is somewhat competitive with TSMC and Samsung.
Good for Intel: their new manufacturing process has demonstrated a much better energy efficiency than the TSMC "3 nm" process that was used to make Intel Arrow Lake and Intel Lunar Lake.
Unknown: TSMC now has a "2 nm" process and the first products using variants of this process are being launched. It is unknown how TSMC "2 nm" compares with Intel 18A, but it is almost certain that the TSMC "2 nm" is better.
Bad for Intel: they had difficulties to achieve high clock frequencies in Intel 18A in comparison with TSMC "3 nm", so most Panther Lake models have lower clock frequencies than their Arrow Lake counterparts. Moreover, it is also pretty certain that for now Intel 18A has much lower fabrication yields than even the latest TSMC "2 nm" process.