Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. (Picture/Dazhi Image)
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently pointed out that Taiwan, China, is not SAFE, and also called on the U.S. government not to subsidize foreign companies such as TSMC. However, it is expected that Taiwan will visit TSMC executives this week, triggering heated market discussions. The head of TW Economics pointed out , will adopt an economic bubble model. The Ministry of Economic Affairs has also approved it and emphasized that this is a business behavior between enterprises and will not meet each other. In this regard, foreign media reports pointed out that Pat Gelsinger’s goal is to reach an agreement with TSMC to provide Intel CPU and GPU production assistance with the 3nm process, but there may be a situation of competing for production capacity with TSMC’s major customers and apple .
Foreign media "wccftech" reported that Taiwan and Malaysia have become the key for Intel to regain large-scale semiconductor production capabilities. Intel plans to purchase chip manufacturing capacity from TSMC. Intel plans to use TSMC to manufacture chips in the second half of 2022 to produce CPUs and GPUs. The report quoted other sources as saying that Intel and TSMC executives will discuss to ensure that TSMC can stably supply 3nm process capacity.
TSMC President Wei Zhejia pointed out in October that the development of TSMC’s 3-nanometer process (N3) is on schedule. Trial production will begin in the second half of this year, and mass production is expected in the second half of next year. The enhanced version of the 3-nanometer process (N3E) is expected to It will be mass-produced one year after N3 mass production.
Wei Zhejia pointed out that compared with 5nm, more new product designs will be finalized in the first year of mass production of 3nm. Due to the more complex process and the need to use many new equipment, the cost will definitely be higher than that of the 5nm process. , is expected to significantly contribute to revenue in the first quarter of 2023. In this regard, Samsung Electronics will introduce the surround gate (GAA) architecture in the 3-nanometer process and lead TSMC in the first half of 2022. Intel has not announced the detailed schedule of the 3-nanometer process.
Pat Gelsinger has announced the promotion of the IDM 2.0 plan since taking office, and announced that the original 10-nanometer Enhanced SuperFin will be renamed Intel 7, and the original 7-nanometer will be renamed Intel 4, followed by Intel 3, Intel 20A, Intel 18A, etc. Intel held "Architecture Day 2021" on August 19. In addition to announcing the 12th generation Intel Core processor architecture code-named Alder Lake, which has been launched recently, using the Intel 7 process, it also revealed a new independent graphics brand " Intel Arc" will use TSMC's 6nm process. The data center GPU "Ponte Vecchio" Xe Link IO chip uses TSMC's 7nm process. The computing chip uses TSMC's 5nm process. The base chip Rambo Cache uses the Intel 7 process.
reports indicate that Intel plans to expand tiles orders for next year to TSMC for production. At the end of next year, it will entrust TSMC with its 3-nanometer process to produce GPU tiles and use advanced packaging to integrate self-produced computing tiles ( compute tile), launching the most powerful CPU codenamed Meteor Lake in 2023.
Since TSMC has always prioritized the production capacity of its major customer Apple, Intel is expected to compete with Apple if it wants to obtain TSMC’s 3nm production capacity. It is estimated that the monthly production capacity of TSMC's 3nm process will not reach 40,000 pieces at the beginning, but after asking customers to even double the 5nm process, the number of TSMC's 3nm process tape-outs has also doubled, and TSMC will even The 2nm process introduces GAA technology, and Pat Gelsinger even had the opportunity to discuss the production capacity of the 2nm process.
