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Intel Reportedly Places 2nm Orders For Nova Lake At TSMC; Foundry Division Likely To Be Left Out For Now

kevin01 said:
Many of these decisions were made a while ago.

And Clearwater Forest is not really a high-volume high-value product, BTW. According to Intel, these E-core Xeons have limited interest from the industry partners. We could corroborate that statement with Ampere Computing's poor performance.
Click to expand...
Excellent point on the forest products. Michelle was pretty clear that these were not well received.
 
MKWVentures said:
Excellent point on the forest products. Michelle was pretty clear that these were not well received.
Click to expand...

Sure is a lot of shade in the forest. :cool:

AMD would not consider their cloud-centric, high core count EPYC CPUs as niche. But Intel chose to put that label on Sierra Forest and Clearwater Forest. That choice plus Clearwater Forest's delay until H1 2026 does not bode well for Intel's cloud share.
 
MKWVentures said:
Its really simple [hypothetically]: 18A is a high performing process with BSPD. It is very expensive due to output per tool limitations that Intel is discovering. IFS foundry customers have not committed to it. As a result, the volume is low and if we keep it limited to one production fab, we can maybe break even by 2027 on 18A. If we need to ramp another fab, it will cost us billions in capex and the new fab will not be fully loaded. If the product gets delayed or doesn't ramp as expected, we lose billions. With TSMC we spend no capex, we can move wafer starts up and down we can adjust loadings on other products. Our volume is <10% of the N2 output.... lots of flexibility.

Pats whole goal was foundry to help keep costs down. But apparently Intel still does not have 2 or 3 key customers according to Tan. Given the design timelines. its getting too late.

I have said all along.... and Intel will tell you soon.... its not about the technology. Its about the finances .... You can easily do the spreadsheet to show this.

So how will the operating margins look for 18A process and products at Intel in 2026?
Click to expand...

Do you think Intel's 18A HVM being both late (2Q26) and expensive, will force Tan to pivot more work to TSMC?
 
fansink said:
🤷‍♂️

I thought Lip-Bu Tan was going to bring transparency back (as though it was ever there), because being transparent would mean coming clean about the health of 18A.

With Nova Lake ~18 months away, if 18A is doing well NOW (as we're being led to believe), surely it will be ROCKING in 18 months. Sounds as transparent as a black hole.

🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
How long do you think Tan have until he get kick out like Pat?
 
fansink said:
Are you intimating that 18A HVM will be before TSMC's 2nm HVM.

If so, you would be absolutely incorrect.
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Are you saying that TSMC has 2nm wafers running HVM now? Because if you are not, then your assumption is flawed.

Intel is planning to launch Panther Lake by the end of this year. That means they have to have to be ramped and running significant volume no later than June. So unless TSMC is ramping some sort of product now, Intel will be first to HVM.
 
fansink said:
That's the crock of shite, "we'll use TSMC because it's the best business decision".

The "best business decision" is CODE for "because what we have internally is crap".

Why don't you give us a logical reason for, if 18A is doing well NOW (as we're being led to believe), surely it will be ROCKING in 18 months.
Click to expand...
No offense intended so hopefully you read this in the spirit it is intended. Your vitriol towards all things Intel makes it hard to put much credence in your comments. A little less anger might go a long ways towards making your position seem more rational. :)
 
Artificer60 said:
Are you saying that TSMC has 2nm wafers running HVM now? Because if you are not, then your assumption is flawed.

Intel is planning to launch Panther Lake by the end of this year. That means they have to have to be ramped and running significant volume no later than June. So unless TSMC is ramping some sort of product now, Intel will be first to HVM.
Click to expand...

You better check your math, you’re off by quite a bit, maybe you missed the bit about 18A risk production starting ~20 days ago, or maybe you believe Risk to HVM only takes ~90 days.

That'd be quite a stunt.
 
XYang2023 said:
PG mentioned majority of Nova Lake is on 18A. I don't understand the point of the discussion...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1914608916631363648
Click to expand...

But Intel's then-CEO Henry Kissinger confirmed it: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:

"Intel is already one of TSMC's major customers for advanced processes. In February last year, Intel's then-CEO Henry Kissinger confirmed that the company had handed over the key compute tiles of two processors to TSMC for the first time. These two products were the later Intel Core Ultra 200V series laptop processors (code-named Lunar Lake) and the company's first AI PC desktop processor, the Intel Core Ultra 200S series (code-named Arrow Lake)."
 
siliconbruh999 said:
It would be a bad decision to use N2 for Volume that means fabs will sit empty using N2 for Halo SKUs makes the most sense and 18A for volume financially and strategically.
Click to expand...

I'll rephrase:

I can totally relate, it wouldn't be prudent to use 18A on a high-volume or high-value product, for any client, currently.

Especially since N2's lifecycle is ~6 months ahead of 18A's lifecycle.

N2 is clearly the prudent move for Intel's high-volume or high-value products, for all clients, currently.

I know it's not a popular notion, for some, but it's highly likely that TSMC’s 2nm will be in HVM (lifecycle Q0) Nov. 2025, and INTC's 18A in May 2026.

Obviously, both nodes can be produced before those lifecycle Q0 dates, with higher defect densities (D0).
 
fansink said:
You better check your math, you’re off by quite a bit, maybe you missed the bit about 18A risk production starting ~20 days ago, or maybe you believe Risk to HVM only takes ~90 days.

That'd be quite a stunt.
Click to expand...
You do understand that risk production becomes product for sale if the process gets certified, right? That means all that "Risk Production" becomes product when it rolls out of the fab in 90ish days. Hence the "risk" in risk production.
 
Artificer60 said:
You do understand that risk production becomes product for sale if the process gets certified, right? That means all that "Risk Production" becomes product when it rolls out of the fab in 90ish days. Hence the "risk" in risk production.
Click to expand...

You do realize that we ALL know what risk production means, just reminding you that N2 risk production started long before 18A.
 
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