Tuesday, September 4th 2018
Analyst Firm Susquehanna: "Intel Lost its Manufacturing Leadership"
Intel was once the shining star in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, with a perfectly integrated, vertical product design and manufacturing scheme. Intel was one of the few companies in the world to be able to both develop its architectures and gear their manufacturing facilities to their design characteristics, ensuring a perfect marriage of design and manufacturing. However, not all is rosy on that field, as we've seen; AMD itself also was a fully integrated company, but decided to spin-off its manufacturing arm so as to survive - thus creating GLOBALFOUNDRIES.But Intel was seen as many as the leader in semiconductor manufacturing, always at the cutting edge of - well - Moore's Law, named after Intel's founding father Gordon Moore. Now, Mehdi Hosseini, an analyst with Susquehanna, has gone on to say that the blue giant has effectively lost its semiconductor leadership. And it has, in a way, even if its 10 nm (which is in development hell, so to speak) is technically more advanced than some 7 nm implementations waiting to be delivered to market by its competitors. However, there's one area where Intel will stop being able to claim leadership: manufacturing techniques involving EUV (Extreme UltraViolet).
It's being reported that intel has decided to postpone its EUV efforts to other processes, not taking it up on its 7 nm process development. This saves Intel money in adding yet another technique and technology to an already hard to manufacture node, but leaves the door ajar for the likes of TSMC and Samsung (of which the latter is expected to have the more complex EUV implementation, in more layers, at least in the beginning). TSMC is looking to develop both 7 nm and 7 nm+ manufacturing processes, where only the latter will feature EUV integration - a way to divide costs and reduce reliance on a still exotic technology. But while Samsung and TSMC are both looking towards some level of EUV integration by 2019, intel is looking towards a farther 2021.
According to Susquehanna's Mehdi Hosseini, TSMC is the company to look out for as the semiconductor manufacturer leader, as it "appears to be winning most of the leading-edge design wins due to better 7nm process technology performance, lower power consumption and better area density." Indeed "the times, they are a changin'."
Source:
EETimes
61 Comments on Analyst Firm Susquehanna: "Intel Lost its Manufacturing Leadership"
I am guessing vega 3 vs rtx 3080 ti is when i will upgrade next. i stopped caring about 4 months ago
Now intel on the whole, they are in trouble.
TBH, some of us has seen this coming, that Intel has lost an edge on the ice.
The bigger problem is what's happening with AMD stock right now. AMD hasn't updated plans, they haven't surprised us with a new product or anything. The only unexpected piece of news about AMD lately is that they lost one 7nm partner.
Yet, the stock keeps rising based on recommendations. It's +11% today because another US-based financial company decided to write a text about 7nm. :-o
Just look at the evolution of price targets:
www.benzinga.com/stock/amd/ratings
I wonder who's buying. It seems a lot of AMD followers started investing... ;-)
Just think what would happen if TSMC also announced delay in 7nm introduction...If only forum members spend so much time studying computer science or business as they spend studying gaming benchmarks...
IMO the non-gaming news are only generating chaos here. I wonder how many gamers on TPU bought a Ryzen because Zen is so great for workstations... :-P
We are so close to quantum issues with this process this only ways forward involves massive R&D and the payback costs are too low to facilitate the transition forward to 5nm profitably.
@notb /Susan,v funny stuff love it.
No unicorn though sad face.
Although it is feeling a lot more like it by the day ...
"TSMC intends to introduce a more advanced 7nm fabrication process that will use EUV for critical layers, taking a page from GlobalFoundries’ book (which is set tp start 7 nm with DUV and then introduces second-gen 7 nm with EUV). "
www.anandtech.com/show/11337/samsung-and-tsmc-roadmaps-12-nm-8-nm-and-6-nm-added/2
This might not be the last page from GF's book that they're going to take. :-)
Intel have not yet lost the manufacturing leadership, we still don't know the yields, volume and performance of TSMC's 7nm. We still don't know who will take leadership in terms of the highest performing node, and who will ship the highest volume.
oh ... min fps, what kind? 1-5% suuure it's dominating 10% ? nope still not dominating... 50% ? ah there we talk but ... well ... that case is not real :p
2nd gen Ryzen compete easily ... so ... "even the 3rd gen will not scratch the base of the sole of Intel" is a fantasy, "the 2nd gen is already touching his nose" not "head and shoulders" above ... but damn near...
7nm seems superior. I wonder what will happen when both AMD (7nm) and Intel(10nm) have CPUs with clocks near the 5Ghz barrier. Are we going to start the Battle of IPC improvement or will the CPUs market stagnate? Would a "simple lithography change" bring IPC gains?
And no, the node or "lithography change" doesn't impact IPC.