Intel’s A18 chipset will be 1.8nm equivalent and feature Gate-All-Around and Backside Power Delivery
Intel’s 18A chips will match 2nm chips from TSMC and Samsung Foundry using Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors that use vertically placed horizontal nanosheets allowing the gate to contact the channel on all four sides. This results in less current leakage and greater drive current. Intel will also match TSMC and Samsung at 2nm using the rear power supply with the 18A node.
FinFET transistor on the left, Gate-All-Around on the right
With rear-end power delivery, the back side of the silicon wafer used to build a chip will distribute power instead of using the front side, which is the typical method. With rear-end power delivery, shorter and wider lines can deliver power with less resistance and there is less congestion than the front-end power delivery method currently used.
Although it looks like Intel, TSMC, and
Samsung Foundry will be pretty close on paper, issues like yield, thermal performance, and other factors can make a big difference for chip designers when determining with which foundry to contract.
The current global leader is TSMC and the foundry’s founder, Morris Chang, does not consider Intel to pose a major threat to his business, even though the
United States supports the company. Per money.UDN (via Tom’sHardware), Chang claims that even if Intel fixes all of its operations and achieves high rates of return and low prices, and Intel Foundry Services succeeds, Intel will still be in TSMC’s shadow.
That said, Chang noted that other foundries are exploiting geopolitical fears (such as the fear that China will invade Taiwan) to try to take business away from TSMC. While he says this makes the short term a difficult time for the world’s largest foundry, he says the best thing TSMC can do is continue to invest in both production capacity and process technology.
Chang, worth an estimated $2.3 billion, probably feels safe with Apple as TSMC’s biggest customer, but even in the Cupertino offices, in
Tim Cook’s mind, there’s cause for concern of how Apple can secure the large supply of tokens it receives over the course of a year. TSMC’s US production plants are delayed and when they
start production they will be behind in terms of process technology.
All things being equal, we cannot imagine Apple leaving TSMC
Apple had a relationship with Samsung Foundry for the iPhone’s application processor (AP), but that ended with the A8 chip when Apple wanted to stop relying so much on Samsung parts to build the
iPhone. That leaves Intel and if you remember, when Apple and Qualcomm were fighting, Apple turned to Intel to produce 5G modem chips for the iPhone, a project that failed so miserably that Apple felt forced to get on their knees and throw bags of money. at Qualcomm to catch up with the chipmaker so that it can supply it with Snapdragon 5G modem chips.
This is a complex board game that costs nothing. Will Intel take leadership of processes from Samsung Foundry and TSMC? On paper, 1.8nm beats 2nm, but you can’t run smartphones on paper; thus, a lower process node might not translate into better performance. Will the geopolitical issues facing TSMC actually happen? Will
Apple turn to Samsung Foundry if necessary? The answers to these questions lie in the future and only then can we look back and properly discuss what happened.
