Kaibelf
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Are you sure? I'm seeing TMSC only valued at around the $30Bn range. Either way I don't think QC would buy them.
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TSMC Paves Way for 5nm A14 Chip in 2020 iPhones
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Are you sure? I'm seeing TMSC only valued at around the $30Bn range. Either way I don't think QC would buy them.
realtuner
Suspended
But is it really? When people say 5nm they’re typically talking about the smallest feature. It doesn’t mean that the entire chip is at 5nm - a lot of items are significantly larger (like transistor gate pitch or interconnects).
Perhaps cmaier could chime in on this, but I imagine that even if 5nm was the smallest we could go that there’s still room for improvement by getting everything on the chip down to that size (if possible).
slide_to_unlock
macrumors regular
realtuner
Suspended
I doubt regulators would allow that. With Qualcomm being found guilty of antitrust issues in several countries, I don’t think they’d be allowed to buy a major fab and gain so much control over several industries.
There are other foundries out there. Apple designs the chips. Other fabs make them. They could go to any number of places. I work in the semiconductor industry.
jonnysods
macrumors G3
Mind blowing really.
I'm envisioning AXX powered MacBook Pros with LTE and touch screens like the Lenovo Yogas...
I'm envisioning AXX powered MacBook Pros with LTE and touch screens like the Lenovo Yogas...
Analog Kid
macrumors G3
Much cheaper to just hire away the talent... Leaves Qualcomm with a bunch of cutting edge fabs and no one to run them.
But I doubt either company sees an advantage in acquisition here. TSMC is investing $28B in the 5nm process. Nobody wants to make a $28B capital investment to support products with volumes in the hundreds of millions. That would add a very risky $100 to the top line cost of each iPhone before they even turned the fab on to produce parts.
If Qualcomm bought the fab, they’d be eager to sell parts to Apple for the same reason Samsung always has— it offsets the fixed cost of the fab and is mutually beneficial.
Market cap looks like $207B right now.
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HiVolt
macrumors 68020
Oh yay, a synthetic benchmark...
How can you compare it against real world applications? Oh wait, you can't, because they don't exist in iOS world.
A simple stock quote shows market cap around $207B today. Those can be wrongly calculated at times but other news stories seem in general agreement.
Apple could probably swing it for $300B or so but it would be the corporate takeover of all takeovers. TSMC is a massive company. Apple would have access to their silicon but they'd also have to run a company that is far more complex than just making A-series processors. They'd also be tied down to one mfg forever, which is not what they'd want.
It'd be easier to just pay exorbitant rates for exclusive access to new tsmc processes.
catportal
macrumors regular
richwiss
macrumors newbie
Moving to Intel was one of the best things Mac did. Hoping that moving to ARM doesn't destroy that.
Analog Kid
macrumors G3
Intel always led the world on process. That’s what’s kept the x86 architecture alive more than anything else. I know there’s different ways of measuring process nodes, and 10nm nodes aren’t directly comparable, but this doesn’t bode well for Intel’s future that TSMC can keep advancing at this rate.
If Microsoft throws their weight behind ARM then Intel is in for some pain...
If Microsoft throws their weight behind ARM then Intel is in for some pain...
I have been wondering why Intel, other than their much better performance, hasn't been pushing the competition like AMD on these marketing schemes. For notebooks and desktops, Ice Lake (and if rumors are true, more so with Tiger Lake in 2020) will be revolutionary.
PickUrPoison
macrumors G3
Since Global Foundries gave up on chasing 7nm, there aren’t many options afaik. Samsung is barely at 7nm, I’m not sure they could manufacture 5nm at volume 12-14 months from now, when Apple needs them.
I don't know for certain. There are tons of semiconductor companies most people haven't heard of. Apple is one of our customers, our chips are in almost everything, I guarantee you own products with our chips, and I doubt anyone has heard of us. Though we can't produce anything close to 7nm let alone 5nm.
Even the big guys, intel, AMD, will use foundries too even though they own their own fabs.
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True. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming Mac Pro was ARM having, say, 80 low energy and 40 high performance cores. That's 20 times as many cores as the A12 has, which would lead to a reasonable power consumption of ~75W (based on https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/05/anandtech-iphone-xs-review/).
“Just” seems a little harsh, I’m not a chip making expert but New smaller fab processes seem to cost billions, I doubt apples chip investment is anywhere near as much
NickName99
macrumors 6502a
Please give some examples of “real world applications” that “don’t exist in iOS world”.
I realize this is all irrelevant to the article, but you’ve aroused my curiosity.
My regular reminder that your fingernails grow at about 1 nanometer every SECOND. Processor manufacturing is the closest humans have come to magic.
cwwilson
macrumors 68000
That’s the vibe I’m getting. 2019 seems like it will be a minor spec bump and a 3rd camera lens and that’s it on the hardware side.
I’m guessing the A14 will be a huge jump in performance, we’ll get true 5G and likely new chassis design all around. 2020 is shaping up to be a doozy. That’s when I will take the plunge to upgrade.
You just spoke over the head of everyone on this thread except me and about 6 other people that understand semiconductor physics. You know that, right?
Most people hear 14nm, 10 nm, 7nm etc. and assume that all features have scaled and that there is a hard fast rule for defining geometries and how things fit together.
I know that Intel 10nm is equivalent or better than TSMC 7nm in density.
Going from 7nm to 5nm may mean active/switching power is lower but it may also mean that leakage is higher.
They are in risk/alpha production.
Mainstream by 2020? Maybe, depends on how dialing in the process works.
Until they run some real chips and some skew lots to see where the rubber really meets the roads, I'll wait.
They completed their DRM (Design Rule Manual), SPICE simulation and Process Design Kits (PDK).
I'm not taking anything away, but before I jump on the bandwagon I need to see real silicon and real yields.
I still remember TSMC 40nm to 28nm pain.
I’m not minimizing TSMC’s contribution, but Apple designs the chips and has correctly not gotten into the capital intensive chip making business.
Apple uses suppliers for components, affording them the ability to be more nimble and put the capital risk on someone else. Really, the best position.
Remember the transistor is no longer mostly flat on the substrate and looks a lot like a skyscraper.
Fin-FET changed the game.
Also 7nm or 5nm defines smallest feature not every feature.