delong.height
Active member
I'm just surprised we are talking about Meteor lake, when we should be talking about this statement:
internal assessment shows that our N3P -- now, I'll repeat again, N3P technology, demonstrated comparable PPA to 18A, my competitors' technology, but with an earlier time to market, better technology maturity, and much better cost. In fact, let me repeat again, our 2-nanometer technology without backside power is more advanced than both N3P and 18A
It seems like TSMC think they can do N3P in 2024, ahead of Intel 18A, which become manufacturing-ready by the end of 2024, the first product of 18A will be most likely to come out in the first half of 2025. This sounds good to Intel's competitors, like AMD and Nvidia, that they can still have a good year in 2024. TSMC really has mastered FinFET! They managed to beat first-gen GAA from both Samsung and Intel. Maybe this is no surprise considering TSMC started N3 manufacturing in 2022, only a year and a half after Pat G come back to the realm.
But I think what comes next. Apparently, Intel is getting a lot better at execution. This means that if according to the annual cadence Pat promised after 18A and Intel's future roadmap with Intel 18A, Next, Next+, Next++. This probably means that TSMC and its customers will have to deal with 18A, and Intel Next (probably manufacturing ready in late 2025 but go mass production 2026 with some chiplet done on it), which will have gen 2 GAA and gen 2 Power Via that are going to be more mature as gen 1 come out with 20A. I think for Intel being the first on new technologies is quite important. They can get to there first, then improve and refine based on that. I think this will likely create more headaches than the statement CC Wei is making because getting the first step is the most complicated among anything. Intel will be able to get its first steps taken in 2024, while TSMC makes a half step with N2 in 2025. And the other half in 2026.