TSMC 3nm

• 15% better transistor density compared to 5nm (instead of 66%)
• up to 10-15% performance improvement with same energy consumption
• or 20-25% less energy consumptionwith similar performance
• TSMC will still use completely unsuitable for such norms FinFET approach

TSMC turned into marketing monster making one fake new process after another.

They have big money and lead for now, but this train can go into deep trench.

It remains to be seen whether unsatisfactory yield rates at Samsung Electronics' 5nm EUV process may affect the launch of Qualcomm's next-generation flagship 5G mobile chip series, according to industry sources.

Nice.

Electricity issues

Data centers are on course to consume 15% of the world’s electricity by 2025, according to Applied Materials Inc., the world’s largest maker of chip equipment. Those giant warehouses of computers currently suck in about 2%, the company said.

“AI has the potential to change everything,” said Applied Materials Chief Executive Officer Gary Dickerson speaking in a prerecorded remote keynote for the industry’s Semicon West conference. “But AI has an Achilles’ heel that -- unless addressed -- will prevent it from reaching its true potential. That Achilles heel is power consumption. Training neural networks is incredibly energy-intensive when done with the technology that’s available today.”

Idea is to move to some custom silicon, but issue is that such investment is very risky as new or wastly improved existing approach will require dumping all and everything of existing rack mounted hardware.

Intel desktop retail CPUs sales staggering fall

YoY fall reaches 70% in EU, around 55% in US and up to 80% in some Asian countries.

Long OEM contracts keep company afloat, but they will start to expire this fall.

After announcement about 12 months delay industry insiders started to talk that no 7nm will be used for desktop and server high performance CPUs till 2024 at least.

Huge issue of Intel 7nm is the heat dissipation, transistors leakage and EUV steps.

To lower leakage on smaller transistor they need to move from FinFET but it instantly makes number of defects around 10x from previous, as it is new approach and much more complex.

This is also reason why TSMC management instead fakes the new silicon processes keeping simple and large transistors and paying more to PR and press coverage.

AMD and TSMC

Over the past year, AMD's investment volume at TSMC has increased significantly. In the beginning of 2019, the monthly production volume was only about 2,000 to 3,000, which is not even the top five customers. The average monthly production volume this year has increased to 7,500 to 8,000. The number of films will grow to above 16,000 next year. It is estimated that the number of films produced in the second quarter of next year will surpass Apple, becoming TSMC’s largest customer for the first time, accounting for more than 20% of revenue.

According to AMD plan, its latest fourth-generation EPYC server processor "Genoa" (referring to the product code) is determined to be unveiled next year. It is a Zen 4 architecture and will be produced in 5nm. The supply chain said that the new product was originally planned to be put into production in the second half of 2021. In order to advance TSMC's 5nm production capacity, it may conduct risky trial production in the fourth quarter of this year and launch mass production in the first half of next year.

As for the mass production of the new Ryzen 5000 series processors in 2021 and the accelerated processor Ryzen 5000 APU series, they will still be produced on a 7nm process. According to the progress, it is estimated that 5 and 7 nanometers will enter the peak of mass production in the second and third quarters of next year.

AMD product line in 2022 will fully adopt the 5-nanometer process.

https://money.udn.com/money/story/5612/4750592

Something is up with TSMC 5nm and also 7nm+ processes, as they significantly lag compared to their previous plans. Also AMD changed Zen 3 slides to no longer feature 7nm+.

In fact due to TSMC issues AMD can enter hard period if Zen3 will be only 3-5% better than previous generation as invester and management want to significantly increas processor sales while not being able to keep same progress in performance.

Big money that cause inflation found their way into semiconductors

Pure-play foundries including TSMC, UMC and VIS have raised their 8-inch wafer fabrication quotes by 10-20% recently to reflect their tight capacities, according to industry sources.

Another reason is huge wall we'll hit very soon. So companies want to pile more cash to try to hold on last possible processes longer.

Applied Materials Says New Tool Breaks Chip Resistance Bottleneck, as smallest vertical connections were becoming unworkable for new generations of chips.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/applied-materials-says-new-tool-breaks-chip-resistance-bottleneck

TSMC July revenue declined 12.3% on month but remain above NT$100 billion (US$3.4 billion).

TSMC has consolidated revenue of NT$105.96 billion for July 2020, up 25% on year. Revenue totaled NT$727.26 billion for the first seven months of the year, rising 33.6% from the same period in 2019.

TSMC expectations for revenues is between US$11.2 billion and US$11.5 billion in the third quarter of 2020, which is a 9.3% sequential increase at the midpoint.

First effects for taking US side in China-US trade war.

If China will be smart and will find weak point we can see full stop of TSMC productiona s soon as this fall.

Two Chinese government-backed chip projects have together hired more than 100 veteran engineers and managers from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's leading chipmaker, since last year, multiple sources have told the Nikkei Asian Review.

The hirings are aimed at helping Beijing achieve its goal of fostering a domestic chip industry in order to cut China's reliance on foreign suppliers, the sources said.

Quanxin Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Jinan), better known as QXIC, and Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or HSMC, along with their various associate and affiliate companies, are little-known outside the industry. But in addition to employing more than 50 former TSMC employees each, both are also led by ex-TSMC executives with established reputations in the chip world. The two projects are aiming to develop 14-nanometer and 12-nanometer chip process technologies, which are two to three generations behind TSMC but still the most cutting-edge in China.

Hongxin and QXIC, founded in 2017 and 2019, respectively, are part of a recent boom in China's semiconductor industry as Beijing prioritizes self-sufficiency in key tech areas impacted by tensions with Washington.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/China-tech/China-hires-over-100-TSMC-engineers-in-push-for-chip-leadership

New Intel approach

Note the issues mentioned and how small are Zen 2 cres part on Xbox X LSI

TSMC at its upcoming technology symposiums will disclose more details about the foundry's 3nm and 2nm process nodes, and advanced 3D heterogeneous integration technology, such as SoIC (system-on-integrated chips) packaging.

Zen 3 will still keep 7nm process, TSMC is unable to make high performance 5nm

Rumors are that TSMC 5nm products have issues with thermals on high frequencies.

As in reality it is almost same 7nm process on low level (same Fin-FET transistors). Stake of TSMC is very high as if they will fail it can be staggering, as both Samsung and Intel while looking like they are behind invest tons of time into new transistor structure and many other complex improvements.