Monday, June 17th 2019

Intel Turns to Samsung in Order to Resolve CPU Shortage on the 14 nm Process

Intel has seemingly partnered with Samsung, one of the largest manufacturers of Integrated Circuits, in order to help reduce the CPU shortage currently affecting the PC market. It is the first time ever that Intel turned to Samsung for it's CPU manufacturing given that, historically, Intel's Client Computing Group (CCG) has always relied on Intel's internal fab to manufacture all of its components. But as resources in those fabs became constrained, Intel CCG started looking at other resources, such as TSMC, to manufacture the chipsets used in Intel-based motherboards.

In a report prepared by Sedialy, a South Korean news media, Intel turned to Samsung specifically to meet demand on its 14 nm products. This unexpected move came after negotiations which, if you believe the rumors before the news, were in progress for quite some time already. Samsung has formally agreed to manufacture Intel's CPUs of the microarchitecture code-named 'Rocket Lake', which will serve as processors for mini PCs, planned to be released in 2021.
According to the source, Samsung will begin mass production of 14 nm Intel CPUs in the fourth quarter of 2020, which means that Intel still will not feel any relief from the off-loaded manufacturing, and will have to put up with it for a while longer. Also, according to the source, Intel's 14 nm manufacturing shortage has been worse than reported, which this partnership with Samsung further hints towards.

Although Intel laid out plans to build a new factory, it will take years to finish it given it is a huge investment which pays off in the long run. There are possibly many reasons why Intel went with Samsung for its CPU manufacturing, with number one being the trade war between China and the US. While TSMC is available, it is also connected with AMD as it manufactures most of its silicon products. Another thing to consider is that Samsung is very much looking forward to accommodating Intel's CPU manufacturing, as its own thriving memory business is tied closely to Intel CPUs as far as the overall market is concerned.
Source: Sedaily
Add your own comment

35 Comments on Intel Turns to Samsung in Order to Resolve CPU Shortage on the 14 nm Process

#26
BorgOvermind
jabbadapUhm what? Samsung's 14nm is inferior to intel's 14nm in every specifications. Does this mean Intel will outsource some of 14nm products on comparable Samsung node or what?
Why do you think they named their new Xeons Silver Gold and Platinum ?
Posted on Reply
#27
londiste
BorgOvermindWhy do you think they named their new Xeons Silver Gold and Platinum ?
Offtopic, but Xeon naming has a method to it:
- Platinum: 8 socket support
- Gold: 4 socket support
- Silver: 2 socket support
- W: single-socket, workstation
Posted on Reply
#28
InVasMani
Intel's doing the opposite of what it should be doing which is having Samsung produce 7nm chips for them. I guess Intel has extreme tunnel vision drunkenly binning those new 14nm C+++ virus/malware friendly skew chips frequency about 100MHz higher so they can cling to 1080p benchmarks a little while longer on those atomic meltdown PC refresh rate master race space heaters.
Posted on Reply
#29
Casecutter
I think this is being done to free-up production for re-entering the discrete graphics market in 2020. I think Intel wants to control manufacturing in-house instead of farming it out.

This like all these players are scrambling to find FAB's that can keep-up rather than investing in their own facilities. GloFo tanked, AMD got back to TSMC saying we'll take 7nm, Nvidia is jumping from their ages long partner to Samsung as what didn't see enough 7nm as they'd require? Now Intel has figured out (as AMD did) hard to dump cash being a cutting edge foundry, and looking to off 14nm to keep selling a strong margins. All of them want to being a multi-market engineering entities in new R&D and spending on build and run Fab's is tough. If you can snag wafer production you can sell to the multifaceted menagerie of clients from; Consoles, AI, HPC, Gamer's, Automotive... it's endless, but you need to "get-in-on" wafer production because there's only so much to go around in the future.
Posted on Reply
#30
londiste
CasecutterI think this is being done to free-up production for re-entering the discrete graphics market in 2020. I think Intel wants to control manufacturing in-house instead of farming it out.
Hasn't Intel said already that they will use Samsung's 7nm EUV for their Xe GPUs?
Intel needs capacity and Samsung - with the memory market down - needs orders on their manufacturing capacity.
Posted on Reply
#31
Casecutter
londisteHasn't Intel said already that they will use Samsung's 7nm EUV for their Xe GPUs?
Intel needs capacity and Samsung - with the memory market down - needs orders on their manufacturing capacity.
Well hard to in interpret... Supposedly for mainstream and enthusiast gaming market they say sometime 2020, Intel’s Xe GPU lineup would be a 10nm, while it's the fist data center product would be 7nm Xe GPUs and that perhaps 2021 for the Aurora supercomputer project.
Posted on Reply
#32
Prima.Vera
Still beating the dead horse 14nm I see.....
Oh, the embarrassment.
Posted on Reply
#35
Midland Dog
Tomgang

Just confirms the released slides leaked in april/may 2019. That Intels 10 NM fabrik will only be in small amounts of pieces available for ultra low power laptops and next year maybe for servers. 10 NM might not even come for desktop as intels 10 NM fabrication has had problems along the way and rumors even say that intel drops 10 NM for desktop and goes directly to 7 NM. But that means it will take longer to get dekstop CPU´s with lower than 14 NM. Slides leaked said 14 NM for all of 2020 and maybe even a long time in to 2021. So intels will still need a lot of 14 NM die´s the next year or two and with the Shortage of 14 NM, this comes as NO BIG SURPRISE they are forced to call reinforcements in form of Samsung this time around.

And if its true intel only will release 14 NM desktop CPU´s again for the rest of 2019 and 2020 maybe even into 2021. Yeah my money will go to team red and Ryzen 3000 that really looks like a pretty desent CPU for what i have seen so far this time as i am tired of Intels bullshit with 14 NM release after 14 NM release + with 14 NM the next CPU line up will properly only have a pretty low IPC gain over 9000 series cpu´s.
"big" 14nm dies, fun fact 8 core skylake die is the same size as 4 core sandy bridge die, funner fact that die is smaller than gp106
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Apr 24th, 2024 20:43 EDT change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts