Yeah, the geopolitics of a move like this is pretty interesting. China definitely wants Taiwan into the fold and I have to think that this move signifies TSMC not wanting any part of that future.
Yeah, of course. The point being that Taiwan corps take full advantage of quasi-slave labor on the mainland. The notion that any of them will poke Beijing in the eye with a stick is ludicrous.
Also (I forgot): the BoM of some tech makes a difference. Foxconn tends toward 19th century minimally capitalized piece work assembly. TSMC, I'll concede, is likely much, much lighter on labor in their general BoM. OTOH, since the cost of capital is the same the world over (money is fungible), the only way for capitalists to make money is to screw labor, and possibly materiel suppliers, though the latter is harder to pull off.
Comparing Foxconn to TSMC just doesn't make any sense. Foxconn is a manufacture of electronics, thats it. TSMC is one of two companies fabricates the cutting edge technology that the world runs on. China is desperate to be off of the dependence other nations for their technological needs and that necessitates the ability manufacture it yourself.
"Cost of capital is not the same though. Lower risks means cost of capital are lower."
true, assuming one can accurately measure 'risk', but irrelevant. my point is that capital moves the world around with the click of a mouse. for any given level of 'risk', any entity in any country gets the moolah and, through the miracle of arbitrage, all opportunities at this level of 'risk' will pay the same amount, irregarless of location. yes, some holders of moolah assign some level of added 'risk' if the country is a democracy rather than an autocracy. cf. China.
Maybe the Taiwanese govt has something to do with it? I think TSMC kinda like Samsung, where they take up such a large fraction of the GDP that government interest is a given.
That's true. Though I think the growing frustration of Taiwan against China is the big culprit. It's not just the spying and human rights violations, or the manipulation of information and unfair practices, but the combination of all of them. The bad response from China in the trade war, and the Covid19, has really pushed Taiwan away. Just like it has for Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
Just for reference people have been saying that EVERY YEAR since Taiwan was on its own. So yah don't expect it to happen. Especially considering having a factory "out of reach" of china doesn't quite work that way..if china did do that its not like the plant is going to stay up and running with no resources from Taiwan coming in..aka money. lol
Never mind the fact the the plants in Taiwan would be destroyed, China has over 1300 missles pointed at major areas in Taiwan. That is enough to make Taiwan completely void of life.
Destroyed??!!? WTF dude.... China wants the technology and resources not the island. China will come for Taiwan when their hard and soft power has reached sufficient level and they are pretty much there now. Hopefully no guns or missiles need to be fired in the process of taking it.
Shit, China's current tactic seems to be "leave Taiwan alone and just bully the rest of the world into not acknowledging their existence, then go total Hong Kong once everyone's forgotten."
Having a fab outside of China would be in other countries' best interests, not specifically Taiwan. It'll take decades of repairing international relations for people to trust a Chinese controlled fab, which China does not seem interested in doing to begin with.
Short of China deploying nukes against a non-nuclear armed country like Taiwan, which would basically mean world war III, those 1300 missiles won't be able to "make Taiwan completely void of life". Sure they will do damage, but those are relatively small conventional warheads. Also, Taiwan's missile defense system will intercept at least some portion of that barrage.
Shoot, we wasted how many tomahawk missiles on that Syrian airbase that didn't do sh*t.
US does not need to go to war, it would be enough to position 2 fleets and threat in all out war if China would be stupid enough to attack the island. China would not want all out war with the US and will back away.
That implies that the US based TSMC fab wouldn't be affected at all if Taiwan (and thus TSMC's headquarters in Taiwan) seized to exist in their current state. Which makes no sense. TSMC's Arizona fab will obviously be owned by TSMC, so if TSMC as a company seizes to exist there will be noone to run that orphan fab.
I’d love to see the cost per chip to pay for a $12B fab, considering most defense spending goes to bureaucracy and not actually making or buying things for defense.
Some rough math: 20K wafers per month = 240K wafers per year; building a 100mm^2 die = 700 die per 300mm wafer (googled, got 300mm wafer = ~ 70K mm^2); assume 50% yield = 350 die/wafer * 240K wafers = 84M dies/year ... ... that's nearly $142/die, to amortize the cost in a single year. Spread over 3 years that's $28/die; higher yields will push that down; tax breaks'll push that down; captive customers could make it pretty lucrative (e.g. US military, if they have to buy chips designed and manufactured domestically; or telecoms, if they ever get required to buy domestic for national-security / infrastructure reasons).
TSMC will not capture much US military business as they are foreign owned. The old IBM military contracts will most likely transfer to ON Semiconductor with the ownership of the Fishkill fab, or maybe even to Intel for advanced nodes.
GF was able to keep the Trusted Foundry Program happy when they ran East Fishkill. There will certainly be regulators looking over the transfer.
Intel was widely expected to get into the Trusted Foundry Program with their 10 nm process and Fab 42.... but we all know how 10 nm has played out and then Intel delayed Fab 42's opening to coincide with 7 nm.
Exactly right. If the US Military wanted a domestically produced chip, and didn't care about who owned the facilities, then I would think the 100K wafer per month fab that Samsung operates in Texas would already be absorbing that demand. Bonus points for the current administration NOT being in a massive trade war with South Korea
The military is gonna use 84M die per year??? No program is gonna use more than a few thousand unless we’re in WW3. Maybe if they piggyback off some commercial products, but that can be a problem if the technology is ITAR. Maybe someone like Xilinx can make it work. The economics of working with the military are terrible, that’s why all the domestic fabs making their products are trailing edge. As the article said all the volume commercial guys are going to stay in Taiwan. This is going to be a massive sinkhole of taxpayer money.
Funny story. Decades ago whoever was running Intel remarked that he'd rather have his X chip in every Ford than every PC. More Fords than PCs, as you might expect. I expect that they're more 'obsolete' X0nm nodes spitting out processors for embedded use than any 'cutting edge' node. And at virtually $0 cost of capital.
That guy was quite right. Today the x86 PC market is about 280 million chips a year. However about 25 billion chips a year use Arm. Most are simple low-power embedded chips that are in every electronic device, from flash drive to internet router, washing machine to car. 28nm is a very advanced process for these, and TSMC makes a lot of money from these old processes.
@voodoobunny ... "that's nearly $142/die, to amortize the cost in a single year."
In their press release TSMC said ... "TSMC’s total spending on this project, including capital expenditure, will be approximately US$12 billion from 2021 to 2029." To be providing that large a time period, I imagine that included a hopeful one or two node upgrades along the way.
TSMC don't sell die, they sell wafers. Their customers sell the die. So all TSMC care about is what they can sell the wafer for, at 5nm something north of $20k or so (maybe less in 2024). So about 2.5 years to payback - probably 3 when you count running costs. BTW - not many in the Semi industry would accept 50% yield. 80% plus is the std "entitlement" yield. Closer to 90% with redundancy or recovery of down-bin/down spec product which fuses off non-functional areas.
Most defense spending goes to military contractors, the biggest being Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and not to any kind of DoD employees, be it soldiers or bureaucracy.
Makes sense to locate in Arizona; Intel operates leading-edge fabs in Chandler, AZ and Hillsboro, OR. The only other place in the US with leading edge fabs is Malta, NY (GF's Trusted Foundry) - but they've abandoned development.
Actually, given the outcome of the recent GF v. TSMC lawsuit, I actually would've thought they might be inclined to locate in NY because it sounds like GF may be cooperating/licensing TSMC's processes going forward. But who knows.
For some things yes, but when you are competing against a country like China that thinks nothing of subsidizing their businesses to the point of being below cost in order to put the competition out of business you need to look at the bigger picture instead of being a self defeating ideologue,
or worse a hypocrite that says no to domestic tax breaks and subsidies but has no problem buying the equivalent foreign made subsidized below cost products because of the cheaper price.
>For some things yes, but when you are competing against a country like China that thinks nothing of subsidizing their businesses to the point of being below cost in order to put the competition out of business you need to look at the bigger picture instead of being a self defeating ideologue,
Then you cut them out of the herd. Don't join them, beat them.
You speak as if there is a herd. There isn't one. Even the EU is on the verge of disintegrating, greatly accelerated by the economic impact of the virus, and there was never a unified diplomatic policy to begin with. I definitely support more flexibility in dealing with China. The Xi regime doesn't play by any rule so most of the self-binding ideologies in the west are gonna look pretty stupid in the face of Xi's ruthless offensive.
So, since it was Little Bush who pushed to get China into WTO, then The Orange Julius can toss 'em out. Oh, wait.... his Big Bucks Bidnezz Men wouldn't like that, would they?
"The people with no rules will beat us, so we should abandon our rules" isn't a winning strategy, it's surrender. Adaptation is the name of the game, not imitation.
"or worse a hypocrite that says no to domestic tax breaks and subsidies but has no problem buying the equivalent foreign made subsidized below cost products because of the cheaper price."
And, just who might do that??? Did Beijing twist any CEO arms to get their production??? Of course not. Said CEOs were and are quite happy to screw the USofA if it means a few pennies in reduced labor. All that MAGA junk, and his ties, are Chinese. And most of his resort help is foreign. "Buy American, Hire American". You can take that to the bank.
Yeah I never understand this crap. Apparently pointing out crappy behaviours when you're not in a position of directly influencing them is hypocrisy, whereas wilfully engaging in them whilst stirring up resentment against the nations being exploited (not the people exploiting it) is... okay?
Cuomo tried for years to get TSMC to build a fab in Utica, NY with generous tax incentives. What he lacked to make it happen was the threat of sanctions that the federal government just used.
There was one mention of the Pheonix area. Pretty much where Intel has their own fabs. I suspect that they're going to be tapping into the local labor market with experience.
I live five minutes away from Intel's Fab 42. It sure would be something for TSMC to set up in their back yard. There's no shortage of land here and Chandler has been looking to bring in more global business. I am willing to bet that Intel puts up a fight and it ends up in Mesa.
How much water does a typical fab consume in all of its processes? I wouldn't think access to fresh water would be so convenient for a factory in Arizona.
Bingo!!!! The Colorado runs dry at the Mexican border, and has for years. A very large company I used to work for decided, some years ago, to move its corporate data center to Australia. Even then it was already the driest spot on earth. In a few years, humans won't be able to live there, either.
5M people in the Phoenix metro taking showers every morning take orders of magnitude more water than any factory (especially given that the water at the factory can be economically recycled).
"5M people in the Phoenix metro taking showers every morning"
well... I guess they could adopt the approach of Queen Victoria, who believed that bathing was bad, and simply dawbed butter on here cheeks every now again.
And that event isn't a result of Red/Blue politics? And that the aftermath won't be full fledged dictatorship? Or are you a Right Wingnut who's been waiting since AuH2O for that transition? :)
"And while this will no longer be the case by the time it comes online in 2024, when 3nm processes are likely to be available"
On schedule 7nm was a miracle, even for TSMC. I'll eat my shoe if 3nm comes on time.
Also, the projected tape out costs for 3nm are... eye opening. I think many products (or parts of products) are going to stay on 5nm, especially if physics start getting in the way of improvements other than density.
5nm is already online. 3nm is well underway but involves a completely new transistor so still likely to be tricky getting to production levels. Still by 2024 it would be surprising if 3nm is *not* available, most likely it would be a year or two old at that point and the 3nm refresh, 3nm+ node would be coming online.
Even with that delay, they expect volume production in 2022. So the article is almost certainly correct about 3nm being available in 2024.
Keep in mind that you have to evaluate the transistor density and other factors. "3nm" means nothing, they can call anything they want 3nm, just like other fabs have done with other nodes.
"TSMC Delays The Production Of 3nm By 6 Months Amidst Equipment Shortages In The Wake Of The Pandemic – 5nm Is Still On Schedule With Production At Full Capacity"
Whatever the case, they should be pumping out 3nm before the 5nm Arizona fab opens.
Thee is a graph showing the increasing cost of Fabs as the Nodes go smaller . 1 nm will likley cost over a Trillion dollars per fab (jk). Shouldnt we be getting huge cheap reliable SSD's, Flash drives and emmc from all this. back to the 70's for the FAB workers, groovy Babe...
It doesn't matter. 2-5 fabs (TSMC, Samsung, Intel...) will get down to whatever they want to call "1nm" (these are marketing names). Then other fabs will start creating monolithic 3D CPUs that can beat even "1nm" from older process nodes like "32nm". Then monolithic 3D designs will be shrunk down to use "5nm" or lower and you'll have absurdly powerful and dense chips. Maybe that will be the end of Moore's law, maybe not.
More commonly known as 2.5D, putting multiple logic and memory chips on top of an intersposer to link them all together has been done for years now in the main stream. Advancements are still taking place here, especially with reducing costs, increasing interposer size, and being able to put several high temperatures dies next to each other (thermodynamic fun).
Full chip stacking with logic on logic can be built today but that runs into thermal issues with existing manufacturing and design techniques. Intel's Fervos is the closest to this concept but side steps the issue by only using low power dies for mobile. If expectations are tempered to this context, there is room to be optimistic as memory could also be stacked in this fashion and end up reducing overall system power further. Just don't expect anything that'd fall under the category of high performance.
There are some various methods for growing 3D traces between circuits as well as 3D logic gates. While this works in labs, the catch is that the time to manufacture is incredibly long. Not impossible, just impractical from what I've seen thus far. Thermal issues were also expected but I have yet to see this fully explored as I have yet to hear of any research vehicle that built one large enough to be a good thermal reference.
There is also the possibility of optical based logic gates. This technology does work in the lab but the problem of mass manufacturing these has been elusive. A 3D version of these has been demonstrated too but also has the interesting concept of how the logic gates are suspended in 3D space and not block the optics of other gates. Optics do have a future else with existing designs and packaging techniques though.
First wafer with layers of CNFETs and RRAM on it made last year. Likely to be significant progress by the end of 2021. TSMC and others will license it or develop their own designs within the next few years.
TSMC already has 5nm today and will be at 3nm in 2023. Intel *may* have their 7nm process in volume by then if they get everything right. But let's first wait for their 10nm desktop CPUs and servers...
Been attempting to get TSMC to build a US plant for several years. At first, Apple wanted the plant to dedicate itself to apple only chips. TSMC declined. Samsung’’s Texas plant was essentially dedicated to Apple’s production, so it seems reasonable. While this article doesn’t mention it, I wonder if that’s the deal here. After all, this is a big plant, but not the biggest. The question is how much production a major company like Apple uses a month, on average. They are TSMC’ s biggest customer, and Apple is known to buy equipment for their manufacturing partners, and receive exclusivity as a result.
"Apple is known to buy equipment for their manufacturing partners, and receive exclusivity as a result."
what was that company that had a spiffy new way to make sapphire for screens? Apple reeled them in, and then they went bankrupt. Corning turned out to be the winner.
Apple didnt “reel them in”. You apparently don't know the history of that. It’s public. They were making sapphire Windows for Apple’s cameras and Touch ID button. They were also the world’s largest maker of sapphire, and the ovens, which they also sold to others, Apple approached them about making sapphire for their phone screens. They said they designed bigger ovens, and that they could do it when needed. Apple gave them over $400 million to develop it, and bought a factory, paid to refurbish it, and paid to run it themselves.
But their ovens never worked properly, and the bullies came out clouded, cracked, and with other problems. It turned out that the company knew they were having these problems, but didn't tell Apple until the last minute. Meanwhile company executives sold large amounts of stock, which had risen because of the Apple deal.
This fiasco cost Apple an estimated $600 million. They ended up buying many of the non working ovens, and the rest were sold by what remained of this company, which as I remember, is still around.
A last-gen fab for 2024 after 5 billion dollars. The current-gen will be 2NM at that point not 5. So this will be an out of date FAB the day it is made.
1. It's good enough and pretty close to the end of node shrinkage. 2. 32nm, 45nm, 90nm, etc. are still in use. 3. They can upgrade it later if they feel the need to.
"The current-gen will be 2NM at that point not 5. So this will be an out of date FAB the day it is made."
Enquiring minds want to know, what is the breakdown of a fab's (initial) cost: 1 - land 2 - the building 3 - utility installation 4 - connections to those utilities 5 - the machines
so, one might conclude that some/most/all of the machines have to be swapped out. and, perhaps, more water and electricity.
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NICOXIS - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
I wonder how much the Huawei ban will affect demand for TSMCeek2121 - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
TSMC has more demand than supply for 7nm, and that demand is very quickly shifting to 5nm so I doubt it will affect things at all.BedfordTim - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
I wondered if this announcement was a negotiating ploy in that battle.spaceship9876 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
China is likely to invade Taiwan within the next decade so having a modern fab in america out of the reach of China is a good idea.Operandi - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Yeah, the geopolitics of a move like this is pretty interesting. China definitely wants Taiwan into the fold and I have to think that this move signifies TSMC not wanting any part of that future.FunBunny2 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
"TSMC not wanting any part of that future. "Foxconn has 12 factories in nine Chinese cities—more than in any other country. [the wiki]
So.....??
Operandi - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Yeah, cool shit....... Foxconn is not TSMC I guess????FunBunny2 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Yeah, of course. The point being that Taiwan corps take full advantage of quasi-slave labor on the mainland. The notion that any of them will poke Beijing in the eye with a stick is ludicrous.FunBunny2 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Also (I forgot): the BoM of some tech makes a difference. Foxconn tends toward 19th century minimally capitalized piece work assembly. TSMC, I'll concede, is likely much, much lighter on labor in their general BoM. OTOH, since the cost of capital is the same the world over (money is fungible), the only way for capitalists to make money is to screw labor, and possibly materiel suppliers, though the latter is harder to pull off.Operandi - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
Comparing Foxconn to TSMC just doesn't make any sense. Foxconn is a manufacture of electronics, thats it. TSMC is one of two companies fabricates the cutting edge technology that the world runs on. China is desperate to be off of the dependence other nations for their technological needs and that necessitates the ability manufacture it yourself.peevee - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Cost of capital is not the same though. Lower risks means cost of capital are lower.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
"Cost of capital is not the same though. Lower risks means cost of capital are lower."true, assuming one can accurately measure 'risk', but irrelevant. my point is that capital moves the world around with the click of a mouse. for any given level of 'risk', any entity in any country gets the moolah and, through the miracle of arbitrage, all opportunities at this level of 'risk' will pay the same amount, irregarless of location. yes, some holders of moolah assign some level of added 'risk' if the country is a democracy rather than an autocracy. cf. China.
GreenReaper - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
Foxconn is a fox. TSMC is . . . some kind of mecha? You can't really compare.Or maybe they could use Taipai's bear mascot: https://focustaiwan.tw/culture/201709260023
brucethemoose - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
The US has courted TSMC before though...Maybe the Taiwanese govt has something to do with it? I think TSMC kinda like Samsung, where they take up such a large fraction of the GDP that government interest is a given.
Kangal - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
That's true.Though I think the growing frustration of Taiwan against China is the big culprit. It's not just the spying and human rights violations, or the manipulation of information and unfair practices, but the combination of all of them. The bad response from China in the trade war, and the Covid19, has really pushed Taiwan away. Just like it has for Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
Santoval - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
TSMC basically send a message to Beijing that they are getting into bed with the Americans, so "don't frack with us".wilsonkf - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
TSMC has two fabs in China.Eliadbu - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
They are both insignificant in terms of node and capacity probably even less important than this planned fab.imaheadcase - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Just for reference people have been saying that EVERY YEAR since Taiwan was on its own. So yah don't expect it to happen. Especially considering having a factory "out of reach" of china doesn't quite work that way..if china did do that its not like the plant is going to stay up and running with no resources from Taiwan coming in..aka money. lolNever mind the fact the the plants in Taiwan would be destroyed, China has over 1300 missles pointed at major areas in Taiwan. That is enough to make Taiwan completely void of life.
Operandi - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Who says TSMC has to stay in Taiwan?Destroyed??!!? WTF dude.... China wants the technology and resources not the island. China will come for Taiwan when their hard and soft power has reached sufficient level and they are pretty much there now. Hopefully no guns or missiles need to be fired in the process of taking it.
Lord of the Bored - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Shit, China's current tactic seems to be "leave Taiwan alone and just bully the rest of the world into not acknowledging their existence, then go total Hong Kong once everyone's forgotten."whatthe123 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Having a fab outside of China would be in other countries' best interests, not specifically Taiwan. It'll take decades of repairing international relations for people to trust a Chinese controlled fab, which China does not seem interested in doing to begin with.deskjob - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Short of China deploying nukes against a non-nuclear armed country like Taiwan, which would basically mean world war III, those 1300 missiles won't be able to "make Taiwan completely void of life". Sure they will do damage, but those are relatively small conventional warheads. Also, Taiwan's missile defense system will intercept at least some portion of that barrage.Shoot, we wasted how many tomahawk missiles on that Syrian airbase that didn't do sh*t.
BedfordTim - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
The Tomahawks were a PR exercise.eek2121 - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
Doubt it. Taiwan has allies. China doesn’t want a war.s.yu - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
I don't believe the US would go to war for Taiwan. Sounds unfortunate but probably to the interest of most people.Eliadbu - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
US does not need to go to war, it would be enough to position 2 fleets and threat in all out war if China would be stupid enough to attack the island. China would not want all out war with the US and will back away.Santoval - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
That implies that the US based TSMC fab wouldn't be affected at all if Taiwan (and thus TSMC's headquarters in Taiwan) seized to exist in their current state. Which makes no sense. TSMC's Arizona fab will obviously be owned by TSMC, so if TSMC as a company seizes to exist there will be noone to run that orphan fab.Arutius - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
You are implying that the mgmt team in AZ will not be competent enough to run the fab. Are you a shill for the CCP Or just thoughtless ?mooninite - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
The era of "Made in China" is hopefully coming to a close.AZBuyer - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Halleluja!Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Yes, we can now have "made in 3rd world country by Chinese company"shabby - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
We'll be number 1 soon, don't worry!flgt - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
I’d love to see the cost per chip to pay for a $12B fab, considering most defense spending goes to bureaucracy and not actually making or buying things for defense.voodoobunny - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Some rough math: 20K wafers per month = 240K wafers per year; building a 100mm^2 die = 700 die per 300mm wafer (googled, got 300mm wafer = ~ 70K mm^2); assume 50% yield = 350 die/wafer * 240K wafers = 84M dies/year ......
that's nearly $142/die, to amortize the cost in a single year. Spread over 3 years that's $28/die; higher yields will push that down; tax breaks'll push that down; captive customers could make it pretty lucrative (e.g. US military, if they have to buy chips designed and manufactured domestically; or telecoms, if they ever get required to buy domestic for national-security / infrastructure reasons).
Arsenica - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
TSMC will not capture much US military business as they are foreign owned. The old IBM military contracts will most likely transfer to ON Semiconductor with the ownership of the Fishkill fab, or maybe even to Intel for advanced nodes.Kevin G - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
GF was able to keep the Trusted Foundry Program happy when they ran East Fishkill. There will certainly be regulators looking over the transfer.Intel was widely expected to get into the Trusted Foundry Program with their 10 nm process and Fab 42.... but we all know how 10 nm has played out and then Intel delayed Fab 42's opening to coincide with 7 nm.
FullmetalTitan - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
Exactly right. If the US Military wanted a domestically produced chip, and didn't care about who owned the facilities, then I would think the 100K wafer per month fab that Samsung operates in Texas would already be absorbing that demand. Bonus points for the current administration NOT being in a massive trade war with South Koreaflgt - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
The military is gonna use 84M die per year??? No program is gonna use more than a few thousand unless we’re in WW3. Maybe if they piggyback off some commercial products, but that can be a problem if the technology is ITAR. Maybe someone like Xilinx can make it work. The economics of working with the military are terrible, that’s why all the domestic fabs making their products are trailing edge. As the article said all the volume commercial guys are going to stay in Taiwan. This is going to be a massive sinkhole of taxpayer money.FunBunny2 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
"The military is gonna use 84M die per year???"Funny story. Decades ago whoever was running Intel remarked that he'd rather have his X chip in every Ford than every PC. More Fords than PCs, as you might expect. I expect that they're more 'obsolete' X0nm nodes spitting out processors for embedded use than any 'cutting edge' node. And at virtually $0 cost of capital.
Wilco1 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
That guy was quite right. Today the x86 PC market is about 280 million chips a year. However about 25 billion chips a year use Arm. Most are simple low-power embedded chips that are in every electronic device, from flash drive to internet router, washing machine to car. 28nm is a very advanced process for these, and TSMC makes a lot of money from these old processes.ilt24 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
@voodoobunny ... "that's nearly $142/die, to amortize the cost in a single year."In their press release TSMC said ... "TSMC’s total spending on this project, including capital expenditure, will be approximately US$12 billion from 2021 to 2029." To be providing that large a time period, I imagine that included a hopeful one or two node upgrades along the way.
TimSyd - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
TSMC don't sell die, they sell wafers. Their customers sell the die.So all TSMC care about is what they can sell the wafer for, at 5nm something north of $20k or so (maybe less in 2024). So about 2.5 years to payback - probably 3 when you count running costs.
BTW - not many in the Semi industry would accept 50% yield. 80% plus is the std "entitlement" yield. Closer to 90% with redundancy or recovery of down-bin/down spec product which fuses off non-functional areas.
peevee - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Most defense spending goes to military contractors, the biggest being Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and not to any kind of DoD employees, be it soldiers or bureaucracy.Sahrin - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Makes sense to locate in Arizona; Intel operates leading-edge fabs in Chandler, AZ and Hillsboro, OR. The only other place in the US with leading edge fabs is Malta, NY (GF's Trusted Foundry) - but they've abandoned development.Actually, given the outcome of the recent GF v. TSMC lawsuit, I actually would've thought they might be inclined to locate in NY because it sounds like GF may be cooperating/licensing TSMC's processes going forward. But who knows.
Yojimbo - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
New York dare not try to give tax breaks again, the economics genius AOC would be out for their blood.Solidstate89 - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
Good. Having to bribe companies with tax breaks can go fuck off.1prophet - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
For some things yes, but when you are competing against a country like China that thinks nothing of subsidizing their businesses to the point of being below cost in order to put the competition out of business you need to look at the bigger picture instead of being a self defeating ideologue,or worse a hypocrite that says no to domestic tax breaks and subsidies but has no problem buying the equivalent foreign made subsidized below cost products because of the cheaper price.
Sahrin - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
>For some things yes, but when you are competing against a country like China that thinks nothing of subsidizing their businesses to the point of being below cost in order to put the competition out of business you need to look at the bigger picture instead of being a self defeating ideologue,Then you cut them out of the herd. Don't join them, beat them.
s.yu - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
You speak as if there is a herd. There isn't one. Even the EU is on the verge of disintegrating, greatly accelerated by the economic impact of the virus, and there was never a unified diplomatic policy to begin with. I definitely support more flexibility in dealing with China. The Xi regime doesn't play by any rule so most of the self-binding ideologies in the west are gonna look pretty stupid in the face of Xi's ruthless offensive.FunBunny2 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
"The Xi regime doesn't play by any rule"So, since it was Little Bush who pushed to get China into WTO, then The Orange Julius can toss 'em out. Oh, wait.... his Big Bucks Bidnezz Men wouldn't like that, would they?
Spunjji - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
"The people with no rules will beat us, so we should abandon our rules" isn't a winning strategy, it's surrender. Adaptation is the name of the game, not imitation.FunBunny2 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
"or worse a hypocrite that says no to domestic tax breaks and subsidies but has no problem buying the equivalent foreign made subsidized below cost products because of the cheaper price."And, just who might do that??? Did Beijing twist any CEO arms to get their production??? Of course not. Said CEOs were and are quite happy to screw the USofA if it means a few pennies in reduced labor. All that MAGA junk, and his ties, are Chinese. And most of his resort help is foreign. "Buy American, Hire American". You can take that to the bank.
Spunjji - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Yeah I never understand this crap. Apparently pointing out crappy behaviours when you're not in a position of directly influencing them is hypocrisy, whereas wilfully engaging in them whilst stirring up resentment against the nations being exploited (not the people exploiting it) is... okay?Spunjji - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Nothing turns me off a comment faster than someone jumping on the "AOC is an idiot" meme train.Lord of the Bored - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
I know. Their monitors aren't really so bad that we need to resort to namecalling.peevee - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Yeah, what's the point to restate the obvious?Arsenica - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Cuomo tried for years to get TSMC to build a fab in Utica, NY with generous tax incentives. What he lacked to make it happen was the threat of sanctions that the federal government just used.shabby - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Intel is going to cry foul anytime now.AZBuyer - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Any idea what area of AZ this plant will be built?Ryan Smith - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
TSMC hasn't said where it will be. But the smart money is on something near Chandler, home of Intel's AZ fabs.Kevin G - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
There was one mention of the Pheonix area. Pretty much where Intel has their own fabs. I suspect that they're going to be tapping into the local labor market with experience.SkyBill40 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
I live five minutes away from Intel's Fab 42. It sure would be something for TSMC to set up in their back yard. There's no shortage of land here and Chandler has been looking to bring in more global business. I am willing to bet that Intel puts up a fight and it ends up in Mesa.hyc - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
How much water does a typical fab consume in all of its processes? I wouldn't think access to fresh water would be so convenient for a factory in Arizona.FunBunny2 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
"How much water "Bingo!!!! The Colorado runs dry at the Mexican border, and has for years. A very large company I used to work for decided, some years ago, to move its corporate data center to Australia. Even then it was already the driest spot on earth. In a few years, humans won't be able to live there, either.
Spunjji - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Yup. The fab will get plenty of water, it's everyone else who should start worrying :/peevee - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
5M people in the Phoenix metro taking showers every morning take orders of magnitude more water than any factory (especially given that the water at the factory can be economically recycled).FunBunny2 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
"5M people in the Phoenix metro taking showers every morning"well... I guess they could adopt the approach of Queen Victoria, who believed that bathing was bad, and simply dawbed butter on here cheeks every now again.
Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Man, I'm f*cking sick of politics. Can't wait for the inevitable societal collapse I'll probably live to see.FunBunny2 - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
"Can't wait for the inevitable societal collapse"And that event isn't a result of Red/Blue politics? And that the aftermath won't be full fledged dictatorship? Or are you a Right Wingnut who's been waiting since AuH2O for that transition? :)
brucethemoose - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
"And while this will no longer be the case by the time it comes online in 2024, when 3nm processes are likely to be available"On schedule 7nm was a miracle, even for TSMC. I'll eat my shoe if 3nm comes on time.
Also, the projected tape out costs for 3nm are... eye opening. I think many products (or parts of products) are going to stay on 5nm, especially if physics start getting in the way of improvements other than density.
TimSyd - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
5nm is already online. 3nm is well underway but involves a completely new transistor so still likely to be tricky getting to production levels.Still by 2024 it would be surprising if 3nm is *not* available, most likely it would be a year or two old at that point and the 3nm refresh, 3nm+ node would be coming online.
nandnandnand - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
3nm was already delayed by 6 months due to coronavirus interference.https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-3nm-rele...
Even with that delay, they expect volume production in 2022. So the article is almost certainly correct about 3nm being available in 2024.
Keep in mind that you have to evaluate the transistor density and other factors. "3nm" means nothing, they can call anything they want 3nm, just like other fabs have done with other nodes.
Wilco1 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
That's Samsung's 3nm process, but TSMC recently said 3nm remains on schedule: https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/3453/tsmc-ramps-5nm...The nm numbers are just names, they haven't had any meaning for more than a decade. This is a good article comparing the next generation processes: https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-manufacturers/i...
nandnandnand - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
I linked the wrong one:https://wccftech.com/tsmc-delays-the-production-of...
"TSMC Delays The Production Of 3nm By 6 Months Amidst Equipment Shortages In The Wake Of The Pandemic – 5nm Is Still On Schedule With Production At Full Capacity"
Whatever the case, they should be pumping out 3nm before the 5nm Arizona fab opens.
Cullinaire - Friday, May 15, 2020 - link
Looks like Intel is going to see big competition for good fab workers finally. A lot of poaching is going to happen, what a headache for Intel.yeeeeman - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
Bad decision, but I guess being pressured by US govnment is not an easy task.nandnandnand - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
How are you qualified to call it a "bad decision"?MASSAMKULABOX - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
Thee is a graph showing the increasing cost of Fabs as the Nodes go smaller . 1 nm will likley cost over a Trillion dollars per fab (jk).Shouldnt we be getting huge cheap reliable SSD's, Flash drives and emmc from all this. back to the 70's for the FAB workers, groovy Babe...
nandnandnand - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
I was 'bout to scoff at the 1 trillion comment.It doesn't matter. 2-5 fabs (TSMC, Samsung, Intel...) will get down to whatever they want to call "1nm" (these are marketing names). Then other fabs will start creating monolithic 3D CPUs that can beat even "1nm" from older process nodes like "32nm". Then monolithic 3D designs will be shrunk down to use "5nm" or lower and you'll have absurdly powerful and dense chips. Maybe that will be the end of Moore's law, maybe not.
Kevin G - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
3D but how?More commonly known as 2.5D, putting multiple logic and memory chips on top of an intersposer to link them all together has been done for years now in the main stream. Advancements are still taking place here, especially with reducing costs, increasing interposer size, and being able to put several high temperatures dies next to each other (thermodynamic fun).
Full chip stacking with logic on logic can be built today but that runs into thermal issues with existing manufacturing and design techniques. Intel's Fervos is the closest to this concept but side steps the issue by only using low power dies for mobile. If expectations are tempered to this context, there is room to be optimistic as memory could also be stacked in this fashion and end up reducing overall system power further. Just don't expect anything that'd fall under the category of high performance.
There are some various methods for growing 3D traces between circuits as well as 3D logic gates. While this works in labs, the catch is that the time to manufacture is incredibly long. Not impossible, just impractical from what I've seen thus far. Thermal issues were also expected but I have yet to see this fully explored as I have yet to hear of any research vehicle that built one large enough to be a good thermal reference.
There is also the possibility of optical based logic gates. This technology does work in the lab but the problem of mass manufacturing these has been elusive. A 3D version of these has been demonstrated too but also has the interesting concept of how the logic gates are suspended in 3D space and not block the optics of other gates. Optics do have a future else with existing designs and packaging techniques though.
nandnandnand - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
https://www.darpa.mil/attachments/3DSoCProposersDa...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ir_--MgMJI
First wafer with layers of CNFETs and RRAM on it made last year. Likely to be significant progress by the end of 2021. TSMC and others will license it or develop their own designs within the next few years.
Jimbo123 - Saturday, May 16, 2020 - link
In 2023, Intel is already in 5nm, that is 1 year ahead of TSMCwilsonkf - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
Intel should have been in 5nm this year.Wilco1 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
TSMC already has 5nm today and will be at 3nm in 2023. Intel *may* have their 7nm process in volume by then if they get everything right. But let's first wait for their 10nm desktop CPUs and servers...FunBunny2 - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
"In 2023, Intel is already in 5nm"Increasingly, Xnm means about as much as a fish story or schlong story, just in reverse: "mine is smaller than youuuuuuuurs!! Nyah Nyah".
FXi - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Here's a history lesson on just how this ends up going.https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/12/21217060/foxcon...
"Plans" for buildings are made all the time. Long term commitment to putting them to work and hiring a workforce are another matter entirely.
melgross - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
Been attempting to get TSMC to build a US plant for several years. At first, Apple wanted the plant to dedicate itself to apple only chips. TSMC declined. Samsung’’s Texas plant was essentially dedicated to Apple’s production, so it seems reasonable. While this article doesn’t mention it, I wonder if that’s the deal here. After all, this is a big plant, but not the biggest. The question is how much production a major company like Apple uses a month, on average. They are TSMC’ s biggest customer, and Apple is known to buy equipment for their manufacturing partners, and receive exclusivity as a result.FunBunny2 - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
"Apple is known to buy equipment for their manufacturing partners, and receive exclusivity as a result."what was that company that had a spiffy new way to make sapphire for screens? Apple reeled them in, and then they went bankrupt. Corning turned out to be the winner.
Cullinaire - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
The difference is TSMC actually had a viable technology going in unlike GTAT.melgross - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Apple didnt “reel them in”. You apparently don't know the history of that. It’s public. They were making sapphire Windows for Apple’s cameras and Touch ID button. They were also the world’s largest maker of sapphire, and the ovens, which they also sold to others, Apple approached them about making sapphire for their phone screens. They said they designed bigger ovens, and that they could do it when needed. Apple gave them over $400 million to develop it, and bought a factory, paid to refurbish it, and paid to run it themselves.But their ovens never worked properly, and the bullies came out clouded, cracked, and with other problems. It turned out that the company knew they were having these problems, but didn't tell Apple until the last minute. Meanwhile company executives sold large amounts of stock, which had risen because of the Apple deal.
This fiasco cost Apple an estimated $600 million. They ended up buying many of the non working ovens, and the rest were sold by what remained of this company, which as I remember, is still around.
darkvader75 - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
A last-gen fab for 2024 after 5 billion dollars. The current-gen will be 2NM at that point not 5. So this will be an out of date FAB the day it is made.nandnandnand - Monday, May 18, 2020 - link
1. It's good enough and pretty close to the end of node shrinkage.2. 32nm, 45nm, 90nm, etc. are still in use.
3. They can upgrade it later if they feel the need to.
FunBunny2 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
"The current-gen will be 2NM at that point not 5. So this will be an out of date FAB the day it is made."Enquiring minds want to know, what is the breakdown of a fab's (initial) cost:
1 - land
2 - the building
3 - utility installation
4 - connections to those utilities
5 - the machines
so, one might conclude that some/most/all of the machines have to be swapped out. and, perhaps, more water and electricity.
adin - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
TSMC will invest $1,3B each year but another will invest rest $200M . DoD or Intel ?melgross - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
Apple?peevee - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link
FINALLY!I hope Apple will produce their CPUs and iPhones here too.
China must go.