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Back to What will computer chips look like in 2045?, with Chris Auth & Kevin Fischer.

How Does Intel Plan to Catch Up to TSMC?

Pushkar Ranade says Intel's catch-up with TSMC is a scale problem, not a missing generation of transistor technology.

TSMC is a much larger leading-edge wafer manufacturer than Intel, and larger than Samsung. Foundry economics are mostly fixed cost. About 80 percent of a fab's cost is fixed, so every extra percent of utilization and yield adds far more output than the percentage itself. A move from 60 percent yield to 65 or 70 percent is not a linear gain. That is why only three foundries remain at the advanced node, down from about 20 around 40 years ago. Many companies simply stopped manufacturing.

On the technology, Ranade says Intel is already there, maybe a few percent off on performance, power, or area. A gap matters when one foundry is a whole generation behind, or two. Within a few percent, different chips want different things, so the work is to be on time with very high yields and a fast ramp.

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What will computer chips look like in 2045? ·

Dwarkesh Podcast

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