Intel has only been behind for the last 7 years or so, because they were several years delayed in rolling out their 10nm node. Before 14nm, Intel was always about about 3 years ahead of TSMC. Intel got leapfrogged at that stage because it struggled to implement the finFET technology that is necessary for progressing beyond 14nm.
The forward progress of semiconductor manufacturing tech isn’t an inevitable march towards improvement. Each generation presents new challenges, and some of them are quite significant.
In the near future, the challenge is in certain three dimensional gate structures more complicated than finFET (known as Gate All Around FETs) and in backside power delivery. TSMC has decided to delay introducing those techniques because of the complexity and challenges while they squeeze out a few more generations, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll hit a wall where Samsung and/or Intel leapfrog them again. Or maybe Samsung or Intel hit a wall and fall even further behind. Either way, we’re not yet at a stage where we know what things look like beyond 2nm, so there’s still active competition for that future market.
Edit: this is a pretty good description of the engineering challenges facing the semiconductor industry next:
“Intel has only been behind for the last 7 years or so”
what is your source for this?
at what point was intel even at par with tsmc in semiconductor/fab quality and production?
I’ve heard this twice now, but as far as I understand, Intel has never met the fabrication technology or demand that TSMC has and has been playing catch up for three decades.
I’m very willing to read a sourced article offering more historical context.
as for the article you’ve linked, it’s a more technical iteration of the “yea but maybe?” articles.
There’s zero refutation of tsmc dominance and zero evidence of a true emergent competitor.
“but it remains to be seen whether they’ll hit a wall where Samsung and/or Intel leapfrog them again. Or maybe Samsung or Intel hit a wall and fall even further behind. Either way, we’re not yet at a stage where we know what things look like beyond 2nm”
their point is “heyvwe don’t know”, but if tsmc next-gen R&D and production fails, and if another company is able to close the distance between themselves and tsmc’s current held advantage, and if that theoretical company is then able to pull ahead with theoretical technologies, then TSMC might not be in first place in terms of semiconductor manufacturing.
“but what if…” isn’t exactly a compelling or relevatory argument.
if a new zero emissions concrete dropped tomorrow and if a company secured the funding to produce it commercially and if they partnered with a next-gen 3d-printing company and real estate developer exclusively committed to low-income housing, then they could build a national chain of economically viable housing units.
None of that has happened and there’s no evidence of it happening, so it’s just a hypothetical series of events.
Familiarity with the industry, and knowledge that finFET was exactly what caused Intel to stall, Global Foundries to just give up and quit trying to keep up, and where Samsung fell behind TSMC. TSMC’s dominance today all goes through its success at mass producing finFET and being able to iterate on that while everyone else was struggling to get those fundamentals figured out.
Intel launched its chips using its 22nm process in 2012, its 14nm process in 2014, and its 10nm process in 2019. At each ITRS “nm” node, Intel’s performance and density was somewhere better than TSMC’s at the equivalent node, but somewhere worse than the next. Intel’s 5-year lag between 14nm and 10nm is when TSMC passed them up, launching 10nm, and even 7nm before Intel got its 10nm node going. And even though Intel’s 14nm was better than TSMC’s 14nm, and arguably comparable to TSMC’s 10nm, it was left behind by TSMC’s 7nm.
You can find articles from around 2018 or so trying to compare Intel’s increasingly implausible claims that Intel’s 14nm was comparable to TSMC’s 10nm or 7nm processes, reflecting that Intel was stuck on 14nm for way too long, trying to figure out how to continue improving while grappling with finFET related technical challenges.
You can also read reviews of AMD versus Intel chips around the mid-2010s to see that Intel had better fab techniques then, and that AMD had to try to pioneer innovating packaging techniques, like chiplets, to make up for that gap.
If you’re just looking at superficial developments at the mass production stage, you’re going to miss out on the things that are in 20+ year pipelines between lab demonstrations, prototypes, low yield test production, etc.
Whoever figures out GAA and backside power is going to have an opportunity to lead for the next 3-4 generations. TSMC hasn’t figured it out yet, and there’s no real reason to assume that their finFET dominance would translate to the next step.
this sounds like it’s confirming my original comment with more specificity, that Intel was consistently playing catch up to tsmc and the only thing that might happen in the future is that maybe tsmc doesn’t progress at the rate they have been and Intel develops a theoretical technology.
lots of maybes and ifs.
maybes and ifs are not evidence of TSMCs downfall, they’re playthings that may or may not happen without any reasonable data to interpret.
I don’t have a horse in this race, but I am allegiant to facts and logical consistency.
Intel has only been behind for the last 7 years or so, because they were several years delayed in rolling out their 10nm node. Before 14nm, Intel was always about about 3 years ahead of TSMC. Intel got leapfrogged at that stage because it struggled to implement the finFET technology that is necessary for progressing beyond 14nm.
The forward progress of semiconductor manufacturing tech isn’t an inevitable march towards improvement. Each generation presents new challenges, and some of them are quite significant.
In the near future, the challenge is in certain three dimensional gate structures more complicated than finFET (known as Gate All Around FETs) and in backside power delivery. TSMC has decided to delay introducing those techniques because of the complexity and challenges while they squeeze out a few more generations, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll hit a wall where Samsung and/or Intel leapfrog them again. Or maybe Samsung or Intel hit a wall and fall even further behind. Either way, we’re not yet at a stage where we know what things look like beyond 2nm, so there’s still active competition for that future market.
Edit: this is a pretty good description of the engineering challenges facing the semiconductor industry next:
https://www.semianalysis.com/p/clash-of-the-foundries
“Intel has only been behind for the last 7 years or so”
what is your source for this?
at what point was intel even at par with tsmc in semiconductor/fab quality and production?
I’ve heard this twice now, but as far as I understand, Intel has never met the fabrication technology or demand that TSMC has and has been playing catch up for three decades.
I’m very willing to read a sourced article offering more historical context.
as for the article you’ve linked, it’s a more technical iteration of the “yea but maybe?” articles.
There’s zero refutation of tsmc dominance and zero evidence of a true emergent competitor.
“but it remains to be seen whether they’ll hit a wall where Samsung and/or Intel leapfrog them again. Or maybe Samsung or Intel hit a wall and fall even further behind. Either way, we’re not yet at a stage where we know what things look like beyond 2nm”
their point is “heyvwe don’t know”, but if tsmc next-gen R&D and production fails, and if another company is able to close the distance between themselves and tsmc’s current held advantage, and if that theoretical company is then able to pull ahead with theoretical technologies, then TSMC might not be in first place in terms of semiconductor manufacturing.
“but what if…” isn’t exactly a compelling or relevatory argument.
if a new zero emissions concrete dropped tomorrow and if a company secured the funding to produce it commercially and if they partnered with a next-gen 3d-printing company and real estate developer exclusively committed to low-income housing, then they could build a national chain of economically viable housing units.
None of that has happened and there’s no evidence of it happening, so it’s just a hypothetical series of events.
Familiarity with the industry, and knowledge that finFET was exactly what caused Intel to stall, Global Foundries to just give up and quit trying to keep up, and where Samsung fell behind TSMC. TSMC’s dominance today all goes through its success at mass producing finFET and being able to iterate on that while everyone else was struggling to get those fundamentals figured out.
Intel launched its chips using its 22nm process in 2012, its 14nm process in 2014, and its 10nm process in 2019. At each ITRS “nm” node, Intel’s performance and density was somewhere better than TSMC’s at the equivalent node, but somewhere worse than the next. Intel’s 5-year lag between 14nm and 10nm is when TSMC passed them up, launching 10nm, and even 7nm before Intel got its 10nm node going. And even though Intel’s 14nm was better than TSMC’s 14nm, and arguably comparable to TSMC’s 10nm, it was left behind by TSMC’s 7nm.
You can find articles from around 2018 or so trying to compare Intel’s increasingly implausible claims that Intel’s 14nm was comparable to TSMC’s 10nm or 7nm processes, reflecting that Intel was stuck on 14nm for way too long, trying to figure out how to continue improving while grappling with finFET related technical challenges.
You can also read reviews of AMD versus Intel chips around the mid-2010s to see that Intel had better fab techniques then, and that AMD had to try to pioneer innovating packaging techniques, like chiplets, to make up for that gap.
If you’re just looking at superficial developments at the mass production stage, you’re going to miss out on the things that are in 20+ year pipelines between lab demonstrations, prototypes, low yield test production, etc.
Whoever figures out GAA and backside power is going to have an opportunity to lead for the next 3-4 generations. TSMC hasn’t figured it out yet, and there’s no real reason to assume that their finFET dominance would translate to the next step.
this sounds like it’s confirming my original comment with more specificity, that Intel was consistently playing catch up to tsmc and the only thing that might happen in the future is that maybe tsmc doesn’t progress at the rate they have been and Intel develops a theoretical technology.
lots of maybes and ifs.
maybes and ifs are not evidence of TSMCs downfall, they’re playthings that may or may not happen without any reasonable data to interpret.
I don’t have a horse in this race, but I am allegiant to facts and logical consistency.
juggling what ifs is not very interesting for me.
Yes, this has been true since about 2017, because 10nm was about 3 years late, losing its previous 3-year lead.
The future is uncertain, but the past is already set.
“losing its previous 3-year lead.”
what three-year lead?
“The future is uncertain, but the past is already set.”
or you think it is.
Good article, thanks