American tech giant on track to take process leadership from TSMC and Samsung Foundry،
Believe it or not, a US company that just got into chipmaking for fabless chip designers will surpass TSMC and Samsung Foundry and take over leadership of both's processes next year. The American company is Intel and,
by Reuters, he made the announcement today after signing Microsoft to become an Intel Foundry customer. Today was the first technology conference from the foundry that announces it will build Microsoft's custom chip using its Intel 18A process.
The Intel 18A process node will be 1.8nm equivalent for TSMC and
Samsung Foundry. This year, TSMC and Samsung Foundry will use their second-generation 3nm process node and plan to
start volume production at 2nm by 2025. As the process node becomes smaller, the characteristics of a chip , including transistors, are becoming smaller. This allows more transistors to be packed inside a chip, making it more powerful and/or energy efficient.
Here's a good example. In 2019, the A13 Bionic chipset powering the iPhone 11
series contained 8.5 billion transistors in each chip. By 2023, the A17
Pro, built using TSMC's 3nm N3B process node, carried 19 billion transistors in each chip.
Intel Foundry signs Microsoft as a customer for chips made using its Intel 18A process node
By 2026, Intel is expected to start production using its Intel 14A process, which is equivalent to a 1.4nm chip from TSMC and Samsung Foundry. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in October 2021 that his company would take over leadership of TSMC and Samsung Foundry's processes by 2025 and it looks like Intel will get there a little sooner than expected. Samsung Foundry and TSMC are expected to start using their 1.4nm process node in 2027.
Intel says it has signed four “large” customers for Intel 18A production, although those companies were not named and Intel did not reveal whether Microsoft was among them. The designer of GPUs and AI chips, Nvidia, has reportedly gone all out on a possible agreement with Intel. Currently, the company relies on TSMC to build its chips.
Intel used to make chips only for itself, but after seeing how successfully TSMC and Samsung Foundry were paid to make chips for companies without manufacturing facilities (a condition known in the industry as “fabless”), the company decided to launch Intel Foundry. . Intel, in addition to taking the lead in processes, also has technology that speeds up the operation of power-hungry AI chips.
Satya Nadella, president and CEO of Microsoft, explains why his company decided to have its new chip manufactured by Intel. “We are in the midst of a very exciting platform shift that will fundamentally transform the productivity of each individual organization and the entire industry,” Nadella said. “To realize this vision, we need a reliable supply of the most advanced, high-performance, high-performance products. high quality semiconductors. That's why we're so excited to work with Intel Foundry and why we've chosen a chip design that we plan to produce on the Intel 18A process.
