Intel vs TSMC Nodes
Comments compare semiconductor process nodes between Intel (e.g., 10nm, 7nm) and TSMC (e.g., 7nm, 5nm, 3nm), debating equivalences, Intel's delays and struggles, and TSMC's leadership in advanced manufacturing.
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Probably because TSMC 7nm =! Intel 10nm
Isn’t TSMC’s “7nm” more comparable to Intel’s 10nm?
You really think Intel is only 2 years behind TSMC?
The leadership has definitely shifted to Taiwan. TSMC 7nm is roughly equivalently to intel 10nm. At leastTSMC first version of 7nm. But TSMC is now well in to ramping their 2nd/3rd iterations of 7nm. And ramping 5nm soon-ish, now this news on 3nm.And Intel has stumbled badly on 10nm, they are now years behind where they wanted to be. Intel are still launching new high end skus on 14nm through 2020. They are shipping 10nm in some volume, but with evident problems still on frequency binning a
Intel is not even manufacturing these, they are TSMC 7nm so they are competing for the same fab capacity that everyone else is using.
Apple sold millions of iPhones with 7nm chips while Intel struggles to build comparable 10nm chips and keeps releasing 14+++ nm. AMD will release 7nm chips very soon. It does not seem like they are catching up. Quite the opposite.
It's not that bad - Samsung and Intel are at most 1-2 years behind TSMC. An eternity in terms of product cycles for sure, but society would not fall apart if Apple had to redesign their A15 and M2 chips for Samsung 5nm next year.
Probably the single biggest reason is the fact that they use TSMC to fab all their chips, and TSMC has had much more consistent node updates compared to intel.Intel's next generation cpu node was supposed to come out this year, and it's been pushed back (possibly due to covid) until the end of 2021 or even into early 2022. Meanwhile, AMD says they have 5nm around the corner.
Layman POV:- TSMC are the only company currently shipping real products at 7nm, and 5nm is a full generation ahead beyond that - nobody else is anywhere close to 5nm.- Samsung will have a 7nm later this year that is broadly equivalent to TSMC's current 7nm (data point: the Galaxy S10 ships with either the Exynos 9820 on Samsung's "8nm" (enhanced/rebranded 10nm) process, or the broadly-similar-performance-with-better-power-efficiency Snapdragon 855 on TSMC 7nm)-
Intel 7nm doesn’t exist, and TSMC 5nm chips have been in production for months now.