TSMC's market cap is 9th highest in world - Tesla is 8th

[TruckElectric]

Taipei, Dec. 8 (CNA) The market capitalization of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) rose to ninth in the world after its American depositary receipts (ADRs) scored solid gains overnight.

TSMC's market cap hit US$551.75 billion after its ADRs rose US$2.66 or 2.56 percent to close at a new high of US$106.39 in the United States, passing investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which is managed by investment guru Warren Buffett, to take the ninth spot.

After the U.S. markets closed, the market cap of Berkshire Hathaway stood at US$537.30 billion.

In addition, strong buying amid optimism toward its business prospects has brought TSMC's market cap closer to electric car brand Tesla Inc., which had a market cap of US$608.33 billion, the world's eighth highest.

After the solid gains in ADRs overnight, TSMC shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange rose Tuesday, extending momentum from a recent strong showing as investors who have been convinced by the chipmaker's sound fundamentals scrambled to pick up the stock.

As of 11:45 a.m., TSMC shares, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, had gained 1.17 percent to NT$520.00 (US$18.37) on the local main board, where the benchmark weighted index, or the Taiex, was up 0.49 percent at 14,325.76 points. The stock hit a historic closing high of NT$514.00 on Monday.

Since the beginning of this year, TSMC shares had soared about 55.3 percent as of Monday, pushing up the Taiex by almost 19 percent to a new closing high of 14,256.60.

A U.S. brokerage has raised its target price on TSMC shares from NT$561 to NT$607, while leaving a "buy" rating on the stock unchanged. The American securities house expressed optimism at TSMC's efforts to develop the advanced 5 nanometer process and secure a higher share of the global market.

The brokerage said TSMC's 5nm process has been in great demand in the wake of rising demand for emerging technologies such as 5G applications, high performance computing devices and artificial intelligence.

The 5nm process is TSMC's latest technology to go into mass production since the second quarter of this year. In the third quarter, the process accounted for about 8 percent of total sales.

In addition, analysts said TSMC is benefiting from a move by Apple Inc. to release the self-developed M1 processor for production of the Mac series as the Taiwanese chipmaker serves as a contract maker for the device.

In addition, Apple is expected to launch new processors next year for Mac production, and TSMC, which leads its peers in high-end technology development, is expected to secure orders, analysts said.

SOURCE: Focus Taiwan News Channel


Chip war between Samsung and TSMC

If there was a nuclear arms race during the cold war, now we are witnessing an arms race in silicon chips. Big chipmakers like TSMC have announced billions of dollars of new investment, and others are opting for massive mergers and acquisitions.

Samsung Electronics, which is the world’s biggest memory chipmaker, is also in the race. $121 billion has been pledged so it becomes the No.1 player in what it calls non-memory sector.

The ultimate competitor is Taiwan’s TSMC, as it is the top supplier with a dominant market share in that field.

We will pin down Samsung’s strategies in this battle and why it matters to you.

What is the Samsung Electronics chief strategy for the non-memory business?

Before we jump into the strategy, we need to talk about what the non-memory business exactly is. The term is more frequently used by the Korean press and chipmakers to indicate the chips other than memory chips. So they include central processing units for computers, application processors for smartphones and camera sensors.

The area also includes what is called foundry, which means building the microprocessors by contract based on the designs from outside customers.

As I mentioned before, Samsung is the largest manufacturer of memory chips, but its portion in foundry business is less than a third of the market share of TSMC.

To close the gap, Samsung will invest $121 billion into non-memory sector by 2030, proclaiming that it will become the top player in the sector.

A lot of that will be used to develop more advanced chip manufacturing processes, and the essence of that process is to shrink the node size.

Samsung and TSMC currently use 5-nanometer processes or above as the two are the only chipmakers capable of achieving the size. Both are planning to introduce 3-nanometer process in 2022.

What is the significance and impact of adopting 3-nanometer chips?

So you now understand Samsung is not “the player” in the playground.

But Samsung wants to shake off that image when it comes to release speed and functionality. TSMC was several months or at least a quarter ahead in mass producing a new generation of chip based on smaller node sizes.

For instance, it began mass-producing 7-nanometer chips in the second quarter of 2018, while Samsung got there in the first quarter in 2019. The gap narrowed for 5-nanometer chips, with TSMC releasing them in the first half of this year and Samsung in the third quarter.

For the planned 3-nanometer product, the gap will be further narrowed in since the two chipmakers appear to be targeting end-2022 as the time for mass-production.

TSMC went more specific to say the second half of 2022, while Samsung only mentioned the year.

The Korean tech company should also prove technical advancement in the development of 3-nanometer chips because it plans to use a new technology called Gate-All-Around FET ahead of TSMC.

The technique is designed to enhance power density of the chips and thus improve energy efficiency, as the new design allows for more expanded and flexible current flows across channels at transistor gate compared to the widely used finFET technique.

TSMC said it will use the technique for the 2-nanometer chips.

More generally, Samsung would also be able to cut the production cost with smaller processes.

Why does the nanometer size matter?

You might have a sense that all the chip makers are obsessed with that nanometer size as you can see in tons of press releases marking the progress in their node size.

It is important because the process size is directly linked with the chip’s performance. The chip manufacturing process is like placing as many people as possible in a schoolyard to get something done. So, a wafer – a thin disc-shaped piece silicon – can be described as a schoolyard and transistors as people.

So, we can say that putting as many transistors on a wafer helps increase performance of an end chip product, and this is why transistor density should go up for better performance.

And the node size refers to the distance between transistors on a chip. The smaller the number, the more high-performing the chips while consuming less energy.

The chips using the 7-nanometer process have approximately 130 to 230 million transistors per square millimeter.

What is the benefit of the 3-nanometer chip from the consumer perspective?

The introduction of the new generation chip is more about improving the processing speed and energy consumption of electronic devices than enabling new services that we’ve never experienced before.

The better performance could be experienced on electronic devices with the 3-nanometer chip — including smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Technically, the smaller node size could provide the end product in smaller sizes.

But those in the semiconductor industry said that the difference is not significant enough to be felt by consumers, since the chips that we are using now are already miniscule.


SOURCE: Korea JoongAng Daily

Sponsored

 

[TruckElectric]

TSMC Reveals a Major Breakthrough Process coming to their 2024 2nm Processors that will Power Future Apple Devices



Last Wednesday Patently Apple posted a report titled "Samsung Vows to overtake TSMC's Chip Business by 2022 and Aims to Win back Apple's chip Business." The report noted that Samsung’s aim is in line with TSMC’s target of offering volume production of 3nm chips in the second half of 2022. Though Samsung also hopes to go one better by adopting what’s known as the Gate-All-Around technique, regarded by some as game-changing technology that can more precisely control current flows across channels, shrink chip areas and lower power consumption. TSMC had opted for the more established FinFET structure for its 3nm lines."

Of course TSMC wasn't going to let Samsung get away with that announcement and has countered it in a new Taiwanese report which states that "TSMC has made a major internal breakthrough in the 2nm process. It is optimistic that the 2nm process is expected to undergo risky trial production in the second half of 2023, and it can enter volume in 2024. Production stage.

TSMC also stated that the 2nm breakthrough will once again widen the gap with competitors, while continuing Moore's Law and continuing to advance the research and development of 1nm process."

So what is this "breakthrough"? In the 2nm process, TSMC will abandon the FinFET (Fin Field Effect Transistor) that has lasted for many years, and even not use the GAAFET (Surround Gate Field Effect Transistor) that Samsung plans to use on the 3nm process, that is, nanowire (nanowire), but Expand it into "MBCFET" (Multi-Bridge Channel Field Effect Transistor), that is, nanosheet based instead of nanowire as presented in the image below.

From GAAFET to MBCFET, from nanowire to nanosheet, it can be regarded as a leap from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, which can greatly improve circuit control and reduce leakage rate.

TSMC predicts that Apple, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD and other customers are expected to take the lead in adopting its 2nm process.

SOURCE: Patently Apple

 

[TruckElectric]

Samsung expands Texas chip plant in investment race with TSMC

South Korean company angles for top spot amid US-China tech war

Samsung seeks to win chip manufacturing orders from big U.S. tech companies. (Photo courtesy of Samsung)

KOTARO HOSOKAWA, Nikkei staff writerDecember 19, 2020 05:22 JST

SEOUL -- Samsung Electronics will expand its semiconductor factory in Texas to make room for next-generation manufacturing equipment as it seeks to wrestle the title of the world's biggest contract chipmaker away from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.


TSMC has already announced a plan to build a new plant in the state of Arizona. As the U.S. and China vie for high-tech supremacy, the two Asian giants are stepping up spending to carve out a bigger slice of the American market, which is home to such leading tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon that design their own chips but use contractors for production,

Samsung views its Austin, Texas plant playing a vital role in wooing orders from American tech companies. City officials recently began reviewing Samsung's request to rezone a newly acquired 440,000 sq. meter plot -- about 40% of its existing campus in there -- for industrial use. Samsung has said the expansion is part of its preparations for the future, though it has not yet decided how much capacity it will add there and when.


"In order to become the world leader, Samsung needs to attract orders from Apple, Intel and others" who currently work with TSMC, said Lee Seung-woo, chief analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities.

Samsung's Austin factory began mass-producing memory chips in 1997. It entered into contract manufacturing in 2010, with a client list that at one point included Apple.

Despite Samsung pouring $17 billion into the facility over its lifetime, equipment there has become outdated. The factory is believed to only be capable of producing chips with 14-nanometer process nodes -- cutting edge about five years ago, but three generations behind the 5nm process now pioneering the industry. The company could end up investing close to $10 billion on advanced equipment required for new, large-scale orders.

Samsung sees expanding the Austin plant as an important step in its goal of becoming the world's biggest foundry. (Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics)


Contract chipmakers often do not acquire new equipment until after they sign long-term supply deals with their clients. But Samsung is expected to update its facility while it seeks out new orders, and is also hiring chip-related engineers largely around Silicon Valley.

Samsung has announced plans to invest 133 trillion won ($121 billion) toward its goal of becoming the world leader in memory semiconductors and logic chips by 2030. It is boosting output capacity at its South Korean factory in Pyeongtaek, and could take advanced chipmaking technologies developed at home to the Austin plant as well.

TSMC is currently in the lead technologically. The company was months ahead of Samsung in mass-producing 5nm chips, which it supplies to Apple. TSMC also "has a significant technological edge over Samsung in terms of yield," according to a chipmaking equipment manufacturer.

TSMC held a 54% market share in foundry services in the July-September quarter, compared with Samsung's 19%, according to Taiwanese research company TrendForce. TSMC also leads in terms of market capitalization, despite having only a sixth of Samsung's overall revenue.

The Taiwanese company announced in May that it would build a new chip facility in Arizona for $12 billion, which will break ground next year and is slated to come online in 2024. But it is unclear whether the project, which has secured generous subsidies from the Trump administration, will continue as planned under President-elect Joe Biden.

Samsung could be holding off on making specific plans regarding the Austin expansion until it has a better idea of Biden's policies regarding the semiconductor industry. Although the U.S. possesses advanced know-how in designing chips, Taiwan and South Korea are now the dominant players in production technology. The U.S. wants to see Samsung expand output capacity within its borders, in response to China's state-backed campaign to boost domestic chip production.

Meanwhile, Samsung is also investing in its chip factory in Xi'an, China. With tensions between Beijing and Washington showing no signs of subsiding, the world's semiconductor companies face increasing pressure to find the right balance between the two superpowers.

SOURCE: NIKKEI Asia

 

[rr6013]

WallSt stock valuations, executed at the speed of light, are not grounded by tangibles. It almost defies human expectation of winning against WallSt traders but TSLA stands in a position no other automotive mfg’r has to disrupt and profit from the industry. The world is saying that it is giving Tesla EV’s every chance to succeed.

Elon showing willingness to a merger to scale-up is answering the call. Whether a synergy merger exists to scale Tesla is why the market is holding - waiting.

 

[FullyGrounded]

Tesla is defying all norms. It has from day one, and not looked back. Elon is redefining what is possible, as he doesn't care what the norm was. Elon believes in innovation, and this is carrying him to the top. peace

 

[TruckElectric]

As Chip Rivals Struggle, TSMC Moves In for the Kill

A budget blowout is a signal that the world’s semiconductor giant will go to great lengths to stay on top.

Being the world’s most dominant chipmaker just isn’t enough. Now Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is making a massive move to obliterate rivals.

After posting a record $17 billion in capital expenditure last year, the semiconductor foundry plans to boost that figure by 37% in 2021. That’s a rate of growth not seen since the company’s rebound from the global financial crisis in 2010. At the upper end of its $25 billion to $28 billion forecast, and based on estimates for revenue this year, TSMC will post a spending-to-sales ratio that will surpass 50% for the first time in a decade. Also known as capital intensity, this number came in at 37.9% last year, the median of the past decade.

Naturally, the company can rationalize this blowout budget. As executives said in a Thursday afternoon conference call, business continues to be strong and sometimes you just need to invest for the future. Yet last year’s 31% growth, which justified recent increases in equipment spending, won’t be repeated.

Revenue will average 10% to 15% growth through to 2025, Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei said. This means it’ll take around four years to “grow into” that 2021 capex number — or get back to a long-term goal of a capital-intensity level in the mid-30s. Executives hinted that this ratio could stay high for a little while, which means that even if spending falls in 2022, it’s still likely to top $21 billion annually for the next few years.

TSMC may want to front-load spending instead of spreading it out. The most obvious reason would be that clients need the capacity now, not tomorrow. There’s such a shortage in output that carmakers are slowing production because they can’t get the chips they need. TSMC certainly doesn’t want to disappoint customers — which include Apple Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Qualcomm Inc., and Nvidia Corp. — so it’s ready to pony up quickly to make things happen.

Any customer left waiting for supply is naturally inclined to shop around, so TSMC has the chance to use its massive might and cash reserves to stamp out such a possibility. Anything it can do to keep business away from rivals could be worth the money.

But there’s another subtext in this bold move.

Those nearest competitors are Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp. The latter is struggling with its own production technology to the point that it may soon end up sending more orders to Taiwan and doing less at home in its own fabs. TSMC surely wants to win those orders instead of letting them go to Samsung.

Further, if TSMC can really prove its value to Intel, that may incentivize a possible plan for the U.S. company to shift to an asset-light model, which would see the maker of computer processors scale down its own manufacturing. This alone would be a long-term boon to TSMC and more than justify a year or two of massive spending.

Then there are lesser rivals like Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp., China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and California-based Globalfoundries Inc. None of them come close in terms of production capabilities, but being able to pick up leftover orders for older technologies would at least keep these smaller companies in the race. (SMIC itself got embroiled in President Donald Trump’s trade war, hurting its chances of advancement — though a Biden administration may ease that pressure.)

By waving around fat checks and snapping up equipment supply from key vendors like ASML Holding NV and Lam Research Corp., the Taiwanese company can slowly suck up the oxygen these others need to breathe.

TSMC’s climb to the top of the global tech sector over the past two decades was no accident. Be sure that it won’t let the next 10 years fall to chance.


SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

 

[TruckElectric]

Try not to panic but the world's largest chipmaker is booked up until 2024
By Katie Wickens 2 days ago

And it looks like Intel is just going to have to wait in line.

We've seen such a huge spike in demand for PC components recently that manufacturers having a hard time keeping up. Now it's surfaced that TSMC, the worlds largest semiconductor manufacturer, has had its entire flagship, 3nm wafer capacity reserved until 2024.


TSMC has invested around $71.4bn in these new chips, and according to sources (elchapuzasinformatico, hardwaretimes), it looks like the new process nodes will be coming in four waves. The majority of this first wave, which is limited to 55k units, will be handed out to Apple. After which, production will increase to 105K units, and will trickle down to AMD, NVIDIA, Xilinx, and Qualcomm.

But what about the boys in blue? Intel is looking to outsource to TSMC, but if the above is anything to go by, it certainly won't be getting priority on its 3nm production capabilities. Without a long-term partnership sweetening the deal, and thanks to only a small-middling demand from Intel, TSMC will consider the company only a "second-tier customer." As such, Intel may be stuck with 7nm and 5nm process nodes.

I'm trying to mask my pain, but this year's not going well for us PC builders. And it's the underlying tech supply tribulations that are the reason for our misery.

In any case, Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger noted that most of its CPUs will be produced in-house from 2023 onwards, so hopefully the blue team won't have to rely on outsourcing the production of its mainstream CPUs to TSMC for long.


Still, Intel will also be subject to the same shortages in other areas that are affecting manufacturers worldwide, so who can say how this will play out.


SOURCE: PCGAMER

 

[TruckElectric]

TSMC, which produces chips for tech giants such as Apple, Google and Qualcomm, accounts for one-third of total local stock market value and around 20% of estimated private sector investment. (Illustration by Michael Tsang)

Taiwan's economy feels heat as TSMC feeds global chip boom
Demand for 'strategic resource' fuels labor, power and water shortages

TAINAN, Taiwan -- Business has never been brisker for construction companies in Taiwan as the world's biggest contract chipmaker rushes to build facilities through the Lunar New Year holiday to meet surging demand.

Cranes, trucks, excavators and all manner of heavy vehicles stream in and out of the vast construction site for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s new factory in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan. The site will be the world's most advanced 3-nanometer chip production plant -- and is due to begin mass production in the second half of 2022.

TSMC, which produces chips for tech giants such as Apple, Google and Qualcomm, has told builders it will pay lucrative premiums to ask many of their workers -- after only two days off -- to begin work a little earlier during the period surrounding the island's most important annual Lunar new year holiday starting this year on Wednesday, people with knowledge of the matter told Nikkei Asia.


And the construction spree will continue throughout 2021 as the titan undertakes its biggest facilities expansion. TSMC is also constructing a research and data center in the northern city of Hsinchu.

"We received a notice from TSMC that it is giving 4,000 New Taiwan dollars ($145) a day as an extra bonus for every worker willing to come during the Lunar New Year... that is literally at least double the average daily wage for front line workers," said one industry executive with direct knowledge of the expansion program.

"Even if that's only roughly a few extra days of building time [during the holiday], they don't want to fully stop at all," the person said. "That shows their commitment to speed up construction and development and confidence for future demand."

TSMC is also set to boost capacity for 5-nanometer chips -- currently used in the latest 5G iPhone 12 range and new Mac core processors -- by 70% from the end of last year to 120,000 wafers a month starting as soon as the end of 2021, multiple sources told Nikkei. That will help meet strong demand from high-end customers including Apple, MediaTek, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

The company told Nikkei Asia it will resume the construction work a few days earlier during the Lunar New Year in southern Taiwan and would pay extra premium to construction partners for working during the holidays. But TSMC declined to comment on its 5-nanometer production capacity expansion plan.


"Construction workers across Taiwan are all attracted to TSMC's sites as it is paying much higher wages than elsewhere... It's really the strong pillar of Taiwan's economy and the center of the tech ecosystem," said Bill Chiu, chairman of Gudeng Precision, which supplies equipment to TSMC.

As well as TSMC boosting capital expenditure by a huge $25 billion to $28 billion this year, the need for construction workers is also growing because other Taiwanese companies are bringing production home from China amid Beijing-U. S. trade tensions.

"For electroplating specialists on construction sites, the daily wage has recently jumped from NT$6,000 to NT$12,000 a day," a fire safety manager surnamed Huang told Nikkei. "It's stunning and unprecedented," he said. Huang also cited COVID-19 preventing foreign workers from easily arriving as a factor constricting labor supply.

H.H. Liu, a construction supervisor at a contractor in the Taipei area, told Nikkei that the worker shortage has intensified since the final quarter of 2020 and worsened further ahead of the holiday.

"TSMC is a key reason... The company and its suppliers are attracting many workers from northern to southern Taiwan, while in the past year there are also many new construction projects for residential and commercial buildings in Greater Taipei," Liu said. "People are all fighting over labor resources. Even with higher wages, we still have a hard time finding enough workers."

The average daily wage for regular construction workers has risen from NT$3,000 to NT$4,000 in less than a year, said supply chain sources, far exceeding Taiwan's national per capita income growth.

Taiwan's private and public sector investment is also robust and economic growth beat Asian peers such as South Korea, Japan and Singapore in 2020, even outpacing China for the first time in 30 years.

People visit a TSMC booth during the 2020 World Semiconductor Conference at the Nanjing International Expo Center on Aug. 27, 2020. © Getty Images

The boom is so strong that many tech executives and some government officials are calling Taiwan the island that TSMC built.

The company is Taiwan's biggest by market cap and accounted for one-third of local stock market value and around 20% of estimated private sector investment this year, according to a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research estimate.

Taiwan's semiconductor industry, the world's second-largest by revenue after the U.S., has also elevated the strategic importance of the self-ruled island of nearly 24 million people that China views as part of its territory. Total revenue in the sector, led by TSMC, accounts for about 15% of gross domestic product, according to the government.

Taiwan-made chips power key electronic devices and are crucial to national security in various countries. The U.S.-China tech spat has highlighted the key role of TSMC and its peers.

TSMC makes chips for iPhones, Google's data centers, Nintendo and Sony game consoles, automakers such as Ford, Honda and Daimler and U.S. F-35 fighter jets, among others. It supplied chips for Huawei's high-end smartphones and telecom equipment before the U.S. changed its export control rules to cut off the Chinese tech champion's supplies.

U.S., European and Japanese carmakers have all recently approached Taiwan to urge domestic chipmakers to increase production of automobile-related chips to resolve the global crunch. Taiwan's economy minister even asked Germany's representative on the island about possibly providing chips in return for Berlin's help in securing COVID-19 vaccines.

Arisa Liu, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research analyst, said semiconductors are no longer just components but strategic resources all major economies must secure.

"Chips are really at the center of the global supply chain," Liu said. "Since TSMC supplies such a wide range of customers worldwide and builds some of the industry's most advanced chips, it is at the very center of the center. But that also means it will receive all kinds of political and economic pressure from major economies such as the U.S., Japan, Europe and China."

A senior executive at Powertech Technology Inc., the world's biggest memory chip assembly and testing provider, said TSMC and Taiwan's entire semiconductor industry have made the island a safer place. "As long as TSMC continues to take the technology lead, Taiwan will have this edge and significant position in relation to China, the U.S., Japan and Europe, which all need chips from the company."

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, right, named TSMC founder Morris Chang as Taiwan's representative to the leaders' meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum last November in Malaysia. © AP

As China and the U.S. feud, Taiwan has attracted approximately $1.19 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($42.5 billion) of investments from 783 companies since late 2018, according to the latest government data on Feb. 4. iPhone assemblers Foxconn and Pegatron, MacBook builder Quanta Computer and iPad maker Compal Electronics are among those increasing investments.

Taiwan's success in containing the coronavirus -- it has had less than 950 cases to date -- has helped manufacturers keep factories humming as many parts of the world imposed lockdowns.
The investments also lifted Taiwan's industrial and service sector average real wage to a record NT$53,173 per month in the first 11 months of 2020, according to TIER. More money in people's pockets sequentially drove higher real estate prices near industrial parks in New Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Tainan.

New housing prices in Hsinchu and Tainan, the cities where TSMC is carrying out big plant and research center expansions, has increased about 15% over the last two years, said housing data provider Ubhouse. Taoyuan, where TSMC operates a chip packaging facility and other Apple suppliers like Quanta, Pegatron and Foxconn are all boosting production capacity, saw a similar increase in home prices.

"The trend is clear that real estate prices in Taiwan are following these new investments and tech developments," said Greg Yeh, Ubhouse's chief analyst. "Home transactions near these areas also increased significantly."

Indeed, Taiwan real estate transactions grew more than 31% in 2020 on year to around NT$100 billion, with more than 50% coming from tech manufacturers' acquisitions of plants and buildings, according to real estate research agency Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan. Land transactions are also hitting highs.

The government forecasts 3.83% economic growth this year, driven by semiconductor industry investments and tech manufacturers bringing production home. Exports rose in 36.8% January from a year earlier -- the seventh straight month increase -- to $34.27 billion in January, the highest monthly figure on record.

But the boom raises the question of whether the island's limited labor, water and power resources can meet longer-term demand growth.

"On top of the low birthrate, fewer and fewer young people are willing to work at construction sites," said Liu, the construction supervisor. "Foreign workers are not the ultimate solution as the government sets limits on their entry and many positions, such as electroplating specialists, require professional knowledge."

Huang, the site manager, said labor shortages are unlikely to disrupt the Big Tech companies but might cause delays for public projects and in commercial real estate.

"It's common that some projects are delayed, and some construction companies even withdrew in the middle of projects," he said. "Most construction companies are becoming much more cautious in committing to new projects because not only do you need to fight for enough laborers, but you also need to fight for steel later when the projects proceed."

A TSMC plant under construction in Tainan, Taiwan on Jan.4, 2020. (Photo by Akira Kodaka)
The government has placed the cities and counties of Hsinchu, Miaoli, Changhua and Taichung on alert for water shortages amid limited rainfall since December.

President Tsai Ing-wen's administration on Feb. 1 started using a new pipeline to draw water from Taoyuan to support Hsinchu, where the heart of the chip industry is located. Her government's pledge to increasingly adopt renewable energy and quit nuclear power by 2025 has raised electricity supply worries.

"The entire world needs TSMC for cutting edge chips... but people are concerned that Taiwan's infrastructure -- such as electricity supply -- may not be able to fully support its growth and expansion because such advanced chip production equipment and plants consume much more energy than before," said veteran chip analyst Mark Li at Bernstein Research.

The auto chip scarcity and U.S.-China tensions have prompted governments to strengthen their semiconductor supply chains.

"The pandemic and the latest chip shortage in the automotive industry have all made key countries around the world realize they need to increase local supplies for all kinds of vital components including medical equipment, semiconductors and key electronic devices," TIER's Liu said. "In the long run, all these major economies will hope to encourage their own chipmakers to expand local plants or continue to lure more foreign investments there."

Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School told Nikkei Asia that TSMC's success has made it a new global focal point of tension.

"It would be wise for TSMC to diversify [production], as hard as that might be. They really don't want to become a political pawn, though there is a lot of risk that they have already become one," Shih said.

"What people fear but no one will voice is that the easiest way for China to achieve leadership in semiconductors is to gain control of Taiwan."


SOURCE: NIKKEI Asia

 

[TruckElectric]

TSMC developing micro OLED displays for 'Apple Glass'

Apple partner supplier TSMC is reportedly developing advanced micro OLED display technology for use in a rumored "Apple Glass" AR headset, though the hardware is unlikely to see integration in the near future.

Citing sources familar with Apple's plans, Nikkei on Wednesday reported that the in-house display initiative is in the trial production phase, meaning mass manufacturing for consumer products is several years out.

Unlike traditional LED panels and OLED modules used in current portable electronics, micro OLED technology promises high-resolution, high-efficiency performance in a compact package. The displays are built directly onto wafers, not glass substrates, making the overall system significantly thinner and smaller than conventional displays. As such, the technology lends itself nicely to wearable augmented reality devices, sources said.

"Panel players are good at making screens bigger and bigger, but when it comes to thin and light devices like AR glasses, you need a very small screen," a source said. "Apple is partnering with TSMC to develop the technology because the chipmaker's expertise is making things ultra-small and good, while Apple is also leveraging panel experts' know-how on display technologies."

The panels in testing are under an inch in size, suggesting incorporation in a waveguide system. Waveguides are commonly used in AR glasses as a means of routing graphical information from an output source (miniature display) to one or more display planes positioned in front of a user's eyes.

TSMC is perhaps best known for its role in fabricating Apple chips like the A-series that powers iPhone and iPad, and Mac's new M1 silicon.

Research and development is being carried out at TSMC facilities in Taiwan. Apple reportedly hired "dozens" of engineers from Taiwanese display firm AU Optoelectronics, as well as industry experts from Japan and other countries, to work on the project. Like all major Apple initiatives, the process is highly secretive and team members were required to sign non-disclosure agreements forbidding them from discussing the venture or meeting with acquaintances who work in the tech industry, a source said.

Apple is widely rumored to debut an AR headset in the coming years. Recent rumors suggest the company will wade into the segment with a high-end VR visor in 2022 before unveiling an "Apple Glass" device in 2023.


SOURCE: appleinsider

 

[TruckElectric]

TSMC: The World’s Most Important Company

Daniel Tenreiro
Thu, April 29, 2021, 5:09 PM·7 min read



The Semiconductor Shortage Could Save Taiwan

Founded in 1987 by Chinese native Morris Chang, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was the first “pure play” foundry, a manufacturer of integrated circuits designed by other companies. Previously, chip designers manufactured their products in house, but the founding of TSMC reshaped the semiconductor industry, splitting the market between “fabless” design firms without in-house manufacturing capabilities, pure-play foundries that only manufacture, and integrated-device manufacturers that do both. Three decades later, TSMC is far and away the world’s dominant producer of semiconductors.

Now, in the midst of a global chip shortage, TSMC is arguably the world’s most important company. Late last year, automakers began warning that insufficient chip supply was constraining car production. The shortage soon hit producers of everything from industrial machinery to mobile phones. Yesterday, the severity of the shortage was put on stark display when Apple, which accounts for one-fifth of TSMC’s revenue, told investors that sales of Macs and iPads would fall by some $3 billion because of supply constraints. If the world’s most valuable smartphone company can’t get its orders filled, no one will come out unscathed.

Wait times for semiconductor orders, typically between four and eight weeks, have stretched as long as 52 weeks, and neither CEOs nor policy-makers can address the constraints through brute force, because new production sites take years to come online. Intel recently announced plans to build two new fabs in Arizona, but those won’t be operational until 2024. And the $50 billion allocated to semiconductor manufacturing in Biden’s infrastructure bill is unlikely to move the needle, considering that the U.S. has only 10 percent market share in chip production.

While the supply shortage will eventually subside, and — if past semiconductor cycles are any indication — likely lead to a supply glut, the episode highlights the strategic importance of chip-manufacturing capabilities. TSMC and Samsung alone control close to 75 percent of the foundry market, providing inputs for a wide range of products both high and low tech. That means a large chunk of the global economy depends on just two suppliers that are not easily replaceable.

Businesses may want to diversify suppliers, but the amount of knowledge and capital necessary to compete with the dominant chipmakers is staggering. The Chinese government has poured hundreds of billions into its domestic foundries to little avail, and integrated-device manufacturers in the U.S. have seen their market share steadily erode over the past three decades. Meanwhile, Beijing and Washington have sparred over the fate of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.

Over the past year, Beijing has been flexing its muscle in the Taiwan Strait, and reportedly began circling warplanes around the island in January, just days after Biden’s inauguration. The Trump administration deepened ties with the island, but the U.S. still maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward the island, offering support but stopping short of recognizing its independence outright. If American alliances in the Middle East tell us anything, it’s that Washington will go to great lengths to protect overseas economic assets. While the fight over Taiwan has largely been an ideological one, the chip shortage has added a new dimension. Should Beijing attempt an invasion, it could tip the scales toward U.S. intervention.

Around the Web
U.S. GDP grows 6.4 percent in the first quarter

US economic growth received a boost in the first three months of 2021 from massive fiscal stimulus that fuelled consumer spending, as well as looser lockdown restrictions, bringing output close to pre-pandemic levels. Gross domestic product advanced 6.4 per cent on an annualised basis in the first quarter, the commerce department said on Thursday. That topped economists’ expectations for 6.1 per cent growth, according to a Refinitiv survey, and marked the quickest first-quarter growth since 1984.

The chip shortage is worsening

In a dizzying 12-hour stretch, Honda Motor Co. said it will halt production at three plants in Japan; BMW AG cut shifts at factories in Germany and England; and Ford Motor Co. reduced its full-year earnings forecast due to the scarcity of chips it sees extending into next year. Caterpillar Inc. later flagged it may be unable to meet demand for machinery used by the construction and mining industries.

Now, the very companies that benefited from surging demand for phones, laptops and electronics during the pandemic that caused the chip shortage, are feeling the pinch. After a blockbuster second quarter, Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri warned supply constraints are crimping sales of iPads and Macs, two products that performed especially well during lockdowns. Maestri said this will knock $3 billion to $4 billion off revenue during the fiscal third quarter.

Random Walk
The Financial Times ran a good overview of TSMC last month, explaining how it has combined scale and process knowledge to build a massive competitive moat:

[TSMC] is getting more dominant with every new process technology node: while it only accounts for 40 to 65 per cent of revenues in the 28-65nm category, the nodes used for producing most car chips, it has almost 90 per cent of the market of the most advanced nodes currently in production.
“Yes, the industry is incredibly dependent on TSMC, especially as you get to the bleeding edge, and it is quite risky,” says Peter Hanbury, a partner at Bain & Company in San Francisco. “Twenty years ago there were 20 foundries, and now the most cutting-edge stuff is sitting on a single campus in Taiwan.”
Since every new node of process technology requires more challenging development and bigger investment in new production capacity, other chipmakers have over the years started focusing on design and left production to dedicated foundries such as TSMC.
The steeper the cost became for new fabrication units the more other chipmakers started to outsource, and the more TSMC’s competitors in the pure-play foundry market dropped out of the race.

One solution would be to diversify the supply chain by distributing TSMC fabs globally. That was the rationale for the Trump administration’s successful push to open TSMC factories in Arizona, but it’s not a perfect solution:

According to analysts, one key reason the company is so efficient and profitable is its concentration of manufacturing in Taiwan. “TSMC’s major sites in Taiwan are sufficiently close enough that TSMC can flexibly mobilise our engineers to support each other when necessary,” says TSMC spokeswoman Nina Kao. A person close to the company estimates that production costs in the US are 8 to 10 per cent higher than in Taiwan.

TSMC is therefore not ready to disperse its manufacturing operations across the globe. “In the US, we committed to building a fab after the authorities made clear that they would subsidise the cost gap. In Japan, our investment is focused on an area of technology that is key to our future,” says a senior TSMC executive. “But in Europe, the case is not that strong, and [the Europeans] really should figure out what exactly it is they want, and whether they can maybe achieve it with their own chipmakers.”

SOURCE: Yahoo News

 

[TruckElectric]

TSMC Update: 2nm in Development, 3nm and 4nm on Track for 2022
by Anton Shilov on April 26, 2021 2:15 PM EST

For TSMC, being the world's largest foundry with nearly 500 customers has its peculiarities. On the one hand, the company can serve almost any client with almost any requirements. On the other hand, it has to stay ahead of everyone else both in terms of capacity and in terms of technology. As far as capacity is concerned, TSMC is unchallenged and is not going to be for years to come. As for fabrication technologies, TSMC has recently reiterated that it's confident that its N2, N3, and N4 processes will be available on time and will be more advanced than competing nodes.

Confidence
Early this year TSMC significantly boosted its 2021 CapEx budget to a $25 – $28 billion range, further increasing it to around $30 billion as a part of its three-year plan to spend $100 billion on manufacturing capacities and R&D.

​

About 80% of TSMC's $30 billion capital budget this year will be spent on expanding capacities for advanced technologies, such as 3nm, 4nm/5nm, and 6nm/7nm. Analysts from China Renaissance Securities believe that most of the money on advanced nodes will be used to expand TSMC's N5 capacity to 110,000 ~ 120,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM) by the end of the year. Meanwhile, TSMC said that 10% of its CapEx will be allocated for advanced packaging and mask making, whereas another 10% will be spent on specialty technologies (which includes tailored versions of mature nodes).

TMSC's the most recent CapEx hikes announcements were made after Intel announced its IDM 2.0 strategy (that involves in-house production, outsourcing, and foundry operations) and to a large degree reaffirms TMSC's confidence in both short-term and long-term future even ahead of intensified competition.

"As a leading pure-play foundry, TSMC has never been short on competition in our 30-plus-year history, yet we know how to compete," said C.C. Wei, president and CEO of TSMC, at a recent conference call with analysts and investors. "We will continue to focus on delivering technology leadership, manufacturing excellence, and earning our customers' trust. The last point, customers' trust, is fairly important because we do not have internal products that compete with customer."

Advertised PPA Improvements of New Process Technologies Data announced during conference calls, events, press briefings and press releases​
	TSMC​
N7 vs 16FF+​	N7 vs N10​	N7P vs N7​	N7+ vs N7​	N5 vs N7​	N5P vs N5​	N4 vs N5​	N3 vs N5​
Power	-60%​	<-40%​	-10%​	-15%​	-30%​	-10%​	lower​	-25-30%​
Performance	+30%​	?​	+7%​	+10%​	+15%​	+5%​	higher​	+10-15%​
Logic Area Reduction % (Density)	70%​	>37%​	-​	~17%​	0.55x -45% (1.8x)​	-​	?​	0.58x -42% (1.7x)​
Volume Manufacturing	2018​	2018 ​	2019​	Q2 2019 ​	Q2 2020​	2021​	2022​	H2 2022​

N5 Gaining Customers
TSMC was the first company to start high volume manufacturing (HVM) of chips using its N5 (5 nm) process technology in mid-2020.

Initially, the node was used solely for TSMC's alpha customers — Apple and HiSilicon. Shipments to the latter ceased on September 14, which left all of the leading-edge capacity to Apple. By now, more customers are ready with their N5 designs, so the adoption of this node is growing. Meanwhile, TSMC says more customers are planning to use N5 family of technologies (including N5, N5P, and N4) than it expected just several months ago.

"N5 is already in its second year of volume production with yield better than our original plan," said Mr. Wei. N5 demand continues to be strong, driven by smartphone and HPC applications, and we expect N5 to contribute around 20% of our wafer revenue in 2021. […] In fact, we are seeing stronger engagement with more customers on 5 nm and 3 nm [versus 7 nm at similar stages]. The engagement is so strong that we have to really prepare the capacity for it."

For TSMC, HPC applications include many different types of products, including AI accelerators, CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, NPUs, and video gaming SoCs, just to name a few. Since they're just a contract manufacturer, TSMC does not disclose what kinds of products it makes using one node or another (we do know that it builds the Apple A14 SoC for smartphones/tablets/STBs as well as the Apple M1 SoC for PCs and tablets), but the very fact that adoption of N5 is growing in the HPC segment is important.

"We expect demand for our N5 family to continue to grow in the next several years, driven by the robust demand for smartphone and HPC applications," the head of TSMC said. "We expect to see HPC, not only in the first wave, but in additional waves of demand to support our leading [N5] node in the future, actually."

It is not particularly surprising that TSMC's N5 is gaining market share among adopters of leading-edge technologies. Analysts from China Renaissance estimate that TSMC's N5 features a transistor density of around 170 million transistors per square millimeter (MTr/mm2), which if accurate, makes it the densest technology available today. By contrast, Samsung's Foundry's 5LPE can boast with about 125 MTr/mm2 ~130 MTr/mm2, whereas Intel's 10 nm features an approximately 100 MTr/mm2 density.

In the coming weeks TSMC is set to start making chips using a performance-enhanced version of its N5 technology called N5P that promises to increase frequencies by up to 5% or reduce power consumption by up to 10% (at the same complexity). The technology offers a seamless migration path for customers without requiring significant engineering resource investment or longer design cycle time, so anyone with an N5 design can use N5P instead. For example, early adopters of N5 could re-use their IP for their N5P chips.

N4: On Track for Next Year
TSMC's N5 family of technologies also includes evolutionary N4 process that will enter risk production later this year and will be used for mass production in 2022.

This technology is set to provide further PPA (power, performance, area) advantages over N5, but keep the same design rules, design infrastructure, SPICE simulation programs, and IPs. Meanwhile, since N4 further extends usage of EUV lithography tools, it also reduces mask counts, process steps, risks, and costs.

"N4 will leverage the strong foundation of N5 to further extend our 5 nm family," said Mr. Wei. "N4 is a straightforward migration from N5 with compatible design rules while providing further performance, power and density enhancement for the next wave of 5-nanometer products. N4 risk production is targeted for second half this year and volume production in 2022."

By the time N4 enters HVM in 2022, TSMC will have about two years of experience with N5 and three years of experience with EUV. So expectations are that yields will be high and the performance variability promises to be low.

But even as cutting-edge as N4 is slated to be, it's not going to be the most advanced fabrication technology that TSMC will offer next year.

N3: Due in H2 2022
In 2022, the world's largest contract maker of chips will roll out its brand-new N3 manufacturing process, which will keep using FinFET transistors, but is expected to offer the whole package of PPA improvements.

In particular, versus their current N5 process, TSMC's N3 promises to increase performance by 10% – 15% (at the same power and complexity) or reduce power consumption by 25% – 30% (at the same performance and complexity). All the while the new node will also improve transistor density by 1.1 ~ 1.7 times depending on the structures (1.1X for analog, 1.2X for SRAM, 1.7X for logic).

N3 will further increase the number of EUV layers, but will keep using DUV lithography. Also, since the technology keeps using FinFET, it will not require a new generation of electronic design automation (EDA) tools redesigned from scratch and development of all-new IPs, which might become a competitive advantage over Samsung Foundry's GAAFET/MBCFET-based 3GAE.

"N3 will be another full node stride from our N5 and will use FinFET transistor structure to deliver the best technology maturity, performance, and cost for our customers," said Mr. Wei. "Our N3 technology development is on track with good progress. We continue to see a much higher level of customer engagement for both HPC and smartphone applications at N3 as compared with N5 and N7."

In fact, TSMC's claims about growing customer engagement with N3 indirectly telegraphs its high expectations for N3.

"[N3] risk production is scheduled in 2021," said TSMC's CEO. "The volume production is targeted in second half of 2022. Our N3 technology will be the most advanced foundry technology in both PPA and transistor technology, when it is introduced. […] We are confident that both our [N5] and [N3] will be large and long-lasting nodes for TSMC."

Beyond N3
Gate-all-around FETs (GAAFETs) are still a part of TSMC's development roadmap. The company is expected to use a new kind of transistors with its 'post-N3' technology (presumably N2). In fact, the company is in path-finding mode for next generations of materials and transistor structures that will be used many years down the road.

"For advanced CMOS logic, TSMC’s 3nm and 2nm CMOS nodes are progressing nicely through the pipeline," the company said in its annual report recently. "In addition, TSMC's reinforced exploratory R&D work is focused on beyond-2nm node and on areas such as 3D transistors, new memory and low-R interconnect, which are on track to establish a solid foundation to feed into many technology platforms.

It is noteworthy that TSMC is expanding capacity for R&D operations at Fab 12, where N3, N2, and more advanced nodes are currently being researched and developed.

Summary
Overall, TSMC is confident that its "everyone's foundry" strategy will enable it grow further in terms of scale, market share, and sales. The company also expects to maintain its technology leadership going forward, which is pivotal for growth.

"For the full year of 2021, we now forecast […] foundry industry growth [at] about 16%," said Wendell Huang, CFO of TSMC, at a recent conference call with analysts and investors. "For TSMC, we are confident we can outperform the foundry revenue growth and grow by around 20% in 2021."

The company has a strong technology roadmap and it is set to continue introducing improved leading-edge nodes every year, thus offering its customers improvements at a predictable cadence.

TSMC knows how to compete against rivals with leading-edge nodes as well as makers of chips focused on specialty process technologies, so it does not see Intel Foundry Services (IFS) as an immediate threat especially because the blue giant is going primarily after leading-edge and advanced nodes.

Financial analysts generally share TSMC's optimism mainly because of the expectation that the company's N3 and N5 nodes are not going to have competitors offering similar transistor densities and wafer starts.

"Following Intel's announced foundry comeback in March, TSMC’s willingness to set a 3-year $100 billion CapEx/R&D investment plan, starting from 2021, indicates its confidence to widen its foundry leadership," Szeho Ng, an analyst with China Renaissance Securities. "We see TSMC’s strategic value rising with N3/N5: strong N5 tape-out activities from HPC/smartphone applications and more N3 client engagement vs N5/N7 at similar stages."

SOURCE: AnandTech

 

[TruckElectric]

TSMC Uses AMD's EPYC Chips to Make Chips
By Anton Shilov about 20 hours ago

The silicon Ouroboros

(Image credit: AMD)

TSMC produces chips for AMD, but it also now uses AMD's processors to control the equipment that it uses to make chips for AMD (and other clients too). Sounds like a weird circulation of silicon, but that's exactly what happens behind the scenes at the world's largest third-party foundry.

There are hundreds of companies that use AMD EPYC-based machines for their important workloads, sometimes business-critical workloads. Yet, when it comes to mission-critical work, Intel Xeon (and even Intel Itanium and mainframes) rule the world. Luckily for AMD, things have begun to change, and TSMC has announced that it is now using EPYC-based servers for its mission-critical fab control operations.

"For automation with the machinery inside our fab, each machine needs to have one x86 server to control the operation speed and provision of water, electricity, and gas, or power consumption,” said Simon Wang, Director of Infrastructure and Communication Services Division at TSMC.

“These machines are very costly. They might cost billions of dollars, but the servers that control them are much cheaper. I need to make sure that we have high availability in case one rack is down, then we can use another rack to support the machine. With a standard building block, I can generate about 1,000 virtual machines, which can control 1,000 fab tools in our cleanroom. This will mean a huge cost saving without sacrificing failover redundancy or reliability."

(Image credit: AMD)

TSMC started to use AMD EPYC machines quite some time ago for its general data center workloads, such as compute, storage, and networking. AMD's 64-core EPYC processors feature 128 PCIe lanes and support up to 4TB of memory, two crucial features for servers used to run virtual machines. But while the infrastructure to support 50,000 of TSMC's employees globally is very complex and important (some would call it business-critical), it isn't as important as TSMC's servers that control fab tools.

Fab tools cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and process wafers carrying hundreds of chips that could be used to build products worth tens of thousands of dollars. Each production tool uses one x86 server, or at least a virtual server. Sometimes hardware fails, so TSMC runs its workloads in such a way that one server can quickly replace the failed one. (Naturally, TSMC does not disclose which operating systems and applications it runs at its fabs.)

At present, TSMC uses HPE's DL325 G10 platform running AMD EPYC 7702P processors with 64 cores (at 2.0 GHz ~ 3.35 GHz) in datacenters. It also uses servers based on 24-core EPYC 7F72s featuring a 3.20 GHz frequency for its R&D operations. As for machines used in TSMC's fabs, the foundry keeps their specifications secret.


It is noteworthy that AMD's data center products are used not only to produce chips, but also to develop them. AMD's own Radeon Technologies Group uses EPYC processors to design GPUs.


SOURCE: tom's HARDWARE




AMD EPYC CPUs Are Helping TSMC Manufacturer Next-Generation Chips Faster
By Hassan Mujtaba

TSMC or Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has announced that it is now using AMD's EPYC CPUs to manufacture brand new and next-generation chips. The world's largest chip manufacturer is relying on AMD's EPYC line of chips which offers a clear advantage over previous implementations.

TSMC Is Now Powered By AMD's EPYC CPUs To Help Manufacturer Chips Faster & Efficiently
As per TSMC's director on infrastructure, each automation machine needs to have access to one x86 server to control the operation speed, provision of water, electricity & gas (power input). The company is making full use of AMD's EPYC CPUs to power these machines which are designing the current and next-generation chips for consumers and HPC powerhouses.

"We first introduced AMD EPYC processors into the general workload,” explains Simon Wang, Director of Infrastructure and Communication Services Division at TSMC, “and they are being deployed with our research and development team.” TSMC was looking for a server solution optimized to implement hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) design where all three components — compute, storage, and networking — could be provided by the same underlying hardware.

Although TSMC is the company that manufactures AMD’s technology-leading 7nm products, which includes the groundbreaking AMD EPYC, Ryzen, and Ryzen Threadripper processors, as well as the AMD Radeon, Radeon Pro, and AMD Instinct GPUs, it didn’t mean that AMD EPYC processors were automatically going to be the preferred selection.

AMD's EPYC CPUs are now being used to manufacture chips at TSMC.

For a while now, TSMC was relying on the HPE DL32G 510 platform for general workloads. The HPE system comprises a 2nd Gen AMD EPYC Rome 7702P CPU which features 64 cores and a total 128 threads. The chip clocks at a 2 GHz base frequency and 3.35 GHz boost clock. TSMC has also made expansions to its manufacturing teams which are relying on the high-frequency (HF) EPYC CPUs like the EPYC 7F72 which feature 24 cores, 48 threads, and a base clock of 3.2 GHz. A single-socket AMD EPYC CPU features 128 PCIe Gen 4 lanes so that doesn't compromise on the IO capabilities of the platform.

“For automation with the machinery inside our fab, each machine needs to have one x86 server to control the operation speed and provision of water, electricity and gas, or power consumption,” adds Wang.

These machines are very costly. They might cost billions of dollars, but the servers that control them are much cheaper. I need to make sure that we have high availability in case one rack is down, then we can use another rack to support the machine. With a standard building block, I can generate about 1,000 virtual machines, which can control 1,000 fab tools in our cleanroom.” This will mean a huge cost saving without sacrificing failover redundancy or reliability.

Utilizing AMD EPYC chips, TSMC states that the higher memory density is a clear advantage for the EPYC Rome chips. The system can also generate about 1000 virtual machines with a standard block which is very impressive. This marks a big win for AMD's EPYC CPUs in powering the world's leading semiconductor manufacturing company.


SOURCE: WCCFtech

 

[Crissa]

Weird thing to write an article around ^-^

-Crissa

Sponsored