well if technology taught us anything is to never say never..
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Apple's Chip Partner TSMC to Begin Mass Production of 5nm Chips at New Arizona Factory in 2024
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I've followed and invested in foundries for a long time. These 'lab' chips with blistering transistor densities are nothing new. There's a huge difference between what's achievable in a lab and what can be massed produced economically (i.e. yields) in vast quantities. You see these stories every couple of years.
TSMC will be pouring biblical sums of money into R&D for their N2 with GAA and beyond processes. The big breakthrough has been EUV.
why is that?
The U.S. already has a bunch of 2- and 3-generation old fabs. Why will another one make a difference 3 years from now.
IBM doesn't have fabs. It doesn't transfer its processes to commercial fabs. It doesn't have a full 2-nm process to transfer.
I'll stick with "never."
yes, I'm aware of that. And there are lots of fabs in the U.S. that are already 2 or 3 generations behind the cutting edge node. So why would this one make a difference?
At AMD we built plants a lot faster than 10 years. Intel is hardly the benchmark.
That’s not how it works. If you tool a fab for 5nm, then to get to the next smaller process node you spend billions of dollars to re-tool it (replacing most of the machinery, etc). You can’t build a fab and then “tweak it” to get to the next process node.
Maybe it's less ris
Nowhere does TSMC even say that these chips will be for Apple. They're probably for other customers who don't demand the latest and smallest die sizes and performance the way Apple does.
Not really relevant to my point, is it? The reason for the bad thing doesn’t mean it is not a bad thing.
It's still 65% of chips from the same company, regardless of where they are produced.
I hope you have enough water for all this growth. Phoenix is in a desert, right?
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But it was not an “opinion.” By the time the fab starts producing chips, the process node in this fab will be at least 2 generations behind the lead node. By that time, other U.S. fabs will also be running on an equivalent node. Responding to “that will be old technology” with “but…but…reasons!” is facially irrelevant.
Do you mean intel Fabs? having this production should drive ARM adoption in PCs and allow more devices access to faster ships aka linksys and others
No, I don’t even mean Intel fabs, but count those in too. GlobalFoundries, Infineon, Renesas, NXP etc. etc. etc. There are literally dozens of fabs in the U.S.
Looking good Cliff!Don’t know that guy.
How about this one?
Former AMD engineer talks about Bulldozer
X-bit Labs reports an ex-AMD engineer spoke out about some of the reasons why Bulldozer disappoints: The reason why performance of the long-awaited Bulldozer was below expectations is not only because...www.guru3d.com
Posted my Ryzen setup on craiglists after reading it, thanks for the heads up.
From Apple's perspective - its smart in case relations with China deteriorate. They have the design and engineering facilities in the US - now they have manufacturing capability here as well.
I see an investment into TSMC eventually making this relationship closer.
Apple’s chips aren’t manufactured in china, so how does the future ability to manufacture some chips in the US help in the event relations with china deteriorate?