Tag: manufacturing nodes

Intel Tried Their Own Process for Nova Lake, But Had to Capitulate

News, Processors | | Jan Olšan

Intel has had 1.8nm chips since January, while TSMC’s 2nm technology arrived much later. The official names don’t mean much, though—evidence has emerged that Intel’s 1.8nm process has significantly worse characteristics despite the “better number”. Intel has apparently developed versions of their next-gen processor for both technologies internally, but the in-house process suffered worse transistor density and poor performance. Read more “Intel Tried Their Own Process for Nova Lake, But Had to Capitulate” »

GlobalFoundries Will Have a 7nm Process After All. In the EU

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Chip foundry GlobalFoundries, successor company to AMD’s fabs, withdrew from the race for advanced manufacturing processes in 2018 by opting to not put its in-house 7nm EUV process into production. A pity, since this was just a few years before the later chip demand boom. The company may nevertheless offer a more modern process after all. It is now promising a new manufacturing technology that is meant to enable “7nm-class” chips. Read more “GlobalFoundries Will Have a 7nm Process After All. In the EU” »

Intel Adds High-NA Tech to 1.8nm, Already Using it in Production

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Last week, at the SPIE Photomask Technology + Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography conference, Intel and ASML announced a surprising development. In cooperation with ASML, Intel has already manufactured one million silicon wafers using High-NA, which is a technology representing the next major leap in advanced chip manufacturing after EUV litography. Prior to this, High-NA was expected to be deployed only several years from now. Read more “Intel Adds High-NA Tech to 1.8nm, Already Using it in Production” »

China Getting Their Own Chipmaking Machines—But No EUV Yet

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Technology sanctions—like those imposed on China—are often criticised as something that compels affected states to develop self-reliant alternatives, boosting their economy. It is not that simple, but China now appears to be making progress in its efforts to make its technology industry self-sufficient and capable of manufacturing everything domestically: not only locally fabbed chips, but also machines for making them. Read more “China Getting Their Own Chipmaking Machines—But No EUV Yet” »

Intel resumes investing in EU. Ireland will get a 3nm node Fab

News, Processors, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Under Patrick Gelsinger, Intel planned to build its first semiconductor fab in continental Europe, in Magdeburg, Germany to expand the company’s manufacturing capacity and turn Intel into a foundry rivalling TSMC. The project was also intended to help develop semiconductor manufacturing within the EU. Intel’s financial difficulties and cutting costs was the end of the project, but it seems Europe investments are back on the table now. Read more “Intel resumes investing in EU. Ireland will get a 3nm node Fab” »

Intel Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake pro notebooky (Autor: Intel)

Intel reportedly solves the yield issues of its 1.8nm process

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Intel’s chip technology has been plagued by problems over the past decade. The infamous 10nm node only became viable after years of delays and while the successor 7nm node was ultimately successful, it still came late. Since then, the company has never fully succeeded with the 4nm, 3nm, 2nm, nor with the1.8nm process which was supposed to mark a turning point. But latest reports suggest that Intel has finally managed a breakthrough. Read more “Intel reportedly solves the yield issues of its 1.8nm process” »

Wafer s 0,7nm čipem IBM

IBM Boasts First Chip Made Using 0.7 nm Technology

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Although IBM no longer operates its own fabs, it remains active in semiconductor research. The company announced experimentally produced 2nm chips all the way back in 2021, albeit not manufactured in commercial volume production (which has only now begun at TSMC). IBM is still active in research and has now announced the first chips made on a sub-1 nm node—designated 7A, or 7 angstroms (0.7 nm)—using a new type of transistor. Read more “IBM Boasts First Chip Made Using 0.7 nm Technology” »

Advanced Yet Cheap Chips? Intel and UMC Developing a 3nm Node

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

As is well known, Intel is trying to pivot to a foundry business fabbing chips for external customers like TSMC or Samsung. Compared to those, however, it currently lacks a portfolio of older, lower-cost technologies. For those, Intel has paired up with Taiwan’s UMC some time ago, aiming to develop an inexpensive easy-to-use 12nm process. But it now appears that this collaboration could later also produce an affordable 3nm process. Read more “Advanced Yet Cheap Chips? Intel and UMC Developing a 3nm Node” »

Intel confirms work underway on 1.0nm and 0.7nm process nodes

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan initially seemed to doubt efforts to turn around the company’s own fabs and warned that Intel’s 1.4nm process could be the last one, but the company’s stock is now ironically rising thanks to hopes placed in the fabs rather than the products, in part due to investor hopes for contracts with Elon Musk and Apple. And it now appears that Intel’s manufacturing process technology once again have a future. Read more “Intel confirms work underway on 1.0nm and 0.7nm process nodes” »

Future Apple Silicon processors will be fabbed by Intel Foundry

News, Processors, Technology | | Jan Olšan

For a while, we’ve been seeing reports that Apple could become one of the key major customers Intel signed up for chip production in its Foundry fabs—a critical factor in Intel’s long-term effort to turn the fab division around. At first, this may have been little more than Intel shareholder’s wishful thinking, but it appears the contract may indeed happen, with Intel set to manufacture Apple chips—for laptops as well as mobile phones. Read more “Future Apple Silicon processors will be fabbed by Intel Foundry” »

Next-gen chips: TSMC announced 1.3 nm and 1.2 nm processes

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

A year ago TSMC introduced 1.6 nm and 1.4 nm chip technologies, which represent—or better said will represent—the most advanced manufacturing nodes for silicon logic circuits that power all modern electronics. Now TSMC has revealed the next milestone: 1.3 nm and 1.2 nm nodes, pushing capabilities even further. Practically all chipmakers and the innovations we’ll see from them in the coming decade depend on TSMC’s technology. Read more “Next-gen chips: TSMC announced 1.3 nm and 1.2 nm processes” »

Intel reportedly landed a deal for fabbing Nvidia’s Feynman GPU

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Intel needs to secure large (and numerous) external customers for its chip fabs to be able to keep them running.  So far, Intel Foundry has been generating multibillion-dollar losses every quarter—but now it may have glimpsed light at the end of the tunnel. Companies are currently looking to diversify away from their dependence on TSMC, and partly thanks to this, Intel has apparently managed to land a very important customer: Nvidia. Read more “Intel reportedly landed a deal for fabbing Nvidia’s Feynman GPU” »

Intel doesn’t want to use its own fabs, makes chipsets at Samsung

Chipsets, News | | Jan Olšan

Intel’s serious fab problems are well known by now. Not only having fallen behind foundry chipmakers in process technology, Intel is also being squeezed by the fact that it does not produce enough of its own chips to keep its fabs profitable. As a result, it too seeks to pivot into the foundry market and serve external customers. And yet, Intel itself is now increasingly outsourcing the production of its own chips. Read more “Intel doesn’t want to use its own fabs, makes chipsets at Samsung” »

Graphics cards, processors to cost more as TSMC raises prices

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

In recent years, hardware has kept getting more expensive—first during the chip shortage and the pandemic, then as wafer suppliers raised prices and the cost of the newest silicon processes continued to rise. Now another markup may be coming: TSMC plans to raise prices for its advanced nodes (5nm and newer), the ones used to make today’s most in-demand hardware. That could push up prices for processors, GPUs, and even whole PCs. Read more “Graphics cards, processors to cost more as TSMC raises prices” »

Intel kills EU fabs, chip manufacturing exit after 1.4nm node?

News, Processors | | Jan Olšan

Last Friday, Intel released its Q2 financial results, reporting another $3 billion loss (though in reality, the situation isn’t as dire as the figure suggests). Alongside these results, Intel announced various measures its new CEO is taking to rescue the company from its current crisis—or at least improve its finances somewhat. The implications are far-reaching. Beyond drastic layoffs, it also means the death of European investments. Read more “Intel kills EU fabs, chip manufacturing exit after 1.4nm node?” »

TSMC’s 1.6nm chips will be unprecedentedly expensive

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

For a long time, Moore’s Law meant new technologies provided more transistors for the same or lower cost, as more could fit onto a chip of the same size. But in the last decade, production costs have been rising, transistors are no longer getting cheaper, and same-sized chips are costing more. And after the 2nm process, things will escalate dramatically – a single wafer will cost nearly ten times more than it did ten years ago. Read more “TSMC’s 1.6nm chips will be unprecedentedly expensive” »

GlobalFoundries & UMC Eye Merger in Chip Industry Shake-Up

News, Technology | | Jan Olšan

In recent years, much attention has been on whether Intel can close the gap in cutting-edge chip technologies and become a true rival to TSMC. Samsung on the other hand already competes, the company is also facing mounting challenges, however. But a new challenger may be emerging for the Taiwanese king of silicon lithography: according to reports, GlobalFoundries and UMC may be exploring a merger to create a stronger competitor. Read more “GlobalFoundries & UMC Eye Merger in Chip Industry Shake-Up” »

Intel cancels the 20A node, meant for Arrow Lake CPU production

News, Processors, Technology | | Jan Olšan

Last week, Intel officially launched the first of their next-gen Core Ultra 200 CPUs, which brings new architectures as well as more advanced silicon technology. That raised optimistic expectations , but those are getting cast in doubt now. Intel has cancelled its 2nm manufacturing process node (Intel 20A), which was part of its plan to catch up with TSMC. However, the follow-up process nodes are still being developed. Read more “Intel cancels the 20A node, meant for Arrow Lake CPU production” »

Intel is seriously considering selling fabs due to money shortage

News, Processors | | Jan Olšan

It used to be unthinkablebut Intel has, in its own words, run into economic problems, or at least a less than satisfactory situation. The company posted worse-than-expected revenue and a big loss in the last quarter, follow-up cuts and layoffs have already been announced. But it looks like this could lead to an even more significant historic turn. Instead of investing in chip technology, it could close its own fabs or end up broken up. Read more “Intel is seriously considering selling fabs due to money shortage” »

Intel’s 4nm process: Meteor Lake processors will reach 5.1+ GHz

News, Processors | | Jan Olšan

Not long ago, we wrote here about the clock speeds expected from Intel’s first 4nm processors, the mobile Meteor Lake. There were widespread concerns that this new technology would again suffer from clock speed regression, as seen with Intel’s early 10nm process. Recently, however, things are starting to look positive, and so Meteor Lake could end up doing very well, with these processors running above the 5.0 GHz threshold. Read more “Intel’s 4nm process: Meteor Lake processors will reach 5.1+ GHz” »

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