Gotta start somewhere. Plus foxconn only abandoned 1 DC build out during Covid, a bit different from TSMC investing billions to build multiple, of which they already built 1.
IMO it's competition that makes better products in the end. If either party becomes a full monopolist the progress will stall (as already happened with Intel I guess)
In which sense? Intel is neither a full monopolist (AMD, ARM) nor has progress stalled (we're still getting a regular cycle of new generation CPUs which improve on the previous).
Intel had a monopoly on bleeding edge cpu for a long time until they got stuck on 14nm for years, allowing TSMC to catch up and providing AMD the means to compete.
In a the best of timelines, intel, tsmc and samsung (and glofo maybe?) Would all have competitive fab nodes.
It was a pretty bad time - ARM wasn't really encroaching on any of their markets in the way they are now & AMD was struggling. Intel basically just left the engineering to rot & the business people to try and gouge consumers with things like the Intel Upgrade Service, low power CPUs that were essentially just normal cores but less rather than optimized, inflated prices etc.
It also allowed AMD to completely blindside them with Zen - so we're in a situation where AMD now dominates consumer desktop and arguably a lot of enterprise/DC instead of it balancing towards a more competitive centre.
Eh, xeon 2690 was released 2012q1 at 8 cores, 2690v4 was 2016q1 at 14 cores. Same suggested customer price. Clock speed dropped a bit, but IPC was way up (AES-NI had a big throughput increase among other things). IIRC, desktop core counts were pretty stagnant, but a Haswell/Broadwell desktop chip at the same corecount and similar clocks was much faster than a Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge.
During 2012-2016 AMD was firmly in the Bulldozer disaster.
In 2017, Zen1 came out, and Intel's tick/tock mostly stopped. Zen1 was better than Bulldozer, but not better than Intel. Zen2 in 2019 was the big moment, and Intel hadn't done much. I recall an interview where the AMD person (might have been Jim Keller) said they had been targetting Zen2 to be competitive with what they thought Intel would have when it came out. Since Intel was in their pipeline bubble, Zen2 was a big win.
Intel had something very close to a monopoly for a long time. ARM wasn't taken seriously for desktop or server applications, and AMD was unable to compete with Intel's top-end CPUs until Zen (and with it Ryzen and Epyc) came around.
Intel Panther Lake is a serious improvement over the previous Intel CPUs, both in energy efficiency and in GPU performance. The good energy efficiency is a good sign for Intel's 18A CMOS fabrication process.
Nevertheless, it is worrying that the computers with Panther Lake CPUs have become much more expensive in comparison with their equivalents of last year with Arrow Lake, and this before adding the hugely increased costs for DRAM and SSDs.
It is also confusing for buyers that the 300-series Panther Lake part numbers that appear to be replacements for the previous 200-series Arrow Lake in most cases correspond to lower technical specifications, i.e. a much smaller GPU and lower clock frequencies.
The Panther Lake models that have the new big and very good GPU are extremely expensive and also hard to find, despite the fact that the GPU continues to be produced by TSMC. Perhaps TSMC has raised its price and prioritizes other customers, so Intel cannot get enough big GPUs, but even the Panther Lake models with the very small GPU (much smaller than Intel has used in many years for its mobile CPUs) have become far too expensive.
Because Panther Lake introduced a few important new features that could have been interesting for experiments in software development (e.g. FRED), I intended to buy some mini-PC with Panther Lake, but I gave up because even one that would cost double in comparison with the mini-PC with Arrow Lake H from last year that I have (i.e. around $1000 as barebone, instead of around $500) would be a downgrade in specs, instead of being an upgrade.
Tsmc are opening 10 factories in USA at cost of $265bn
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-tsmc-us-investment...
Intel staying strong is still vital for competitiveness though
Until they are built, it's all talk.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-mostly-abandons-10-b...
They are built, at least one in Phoenix:
> As of 2025, the first fab has been completed and is producing four-nanometer (nm) chips.
One is built, OP said 10.
Gotta start somewhere. Plus foxconn only abandoned 1 DC build out during Covid, a bit different from TSMC investing billions to build multiple, of which they already built 1.
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TSMC also AFAIK is forbidden from setting up bleeding-edge fabs outside of Taiwan?
Four more 2nm (or below) fabs in Arizona. That's bleeding-edge or very close to it.
By end of decade, no? Seems like domestic fab will always be two steps behind. I assume by design.
They're building 1.4nm in Taiwan
Will they remain bleeding edge by the time they are operational?
Intel latest is the bleeding edge and more advanced than TSMCs.
IMO it's competition that makes better products in the end. If either party becomes a full monopolist the progress will stall (as already happened with Intel I guess)
> as already happened with Intel I guess
In which sense? Intel is neither a full monopolist (AMD, ARM) nor has progress stalled (we're still getting a regular cycle of new generation CPUs which improve on the previous).
Intel had a monopoly on bleeding edge cpu for a long time until they got stuck on 14nm for years, allowing TSMC to catch up and providing AMD the means to compete.
In a the best of timelines, intel, tsmc and samsung (and glofo maybe?) Would all have competitive fab nodes.
Intel didn't do much to improve their CPUs while AMD was out of the competition with the Bulldozer disaster.
It was a pretty bad time - ARM wasn't really encroaching on any of their markets in the way they are now & AMD was struggling. Intel basically just left the engineering to rot & the business people to try and gouge consumers with things like the Intel Upgrade Service, low power CPUs that were essentially just normal cores but less rather than optimized, inflated prices etc.
It also allowed AMD to completely blindside them with Zen - so we're in a situation where AMD now dominates consumer desktop and arguably a lot of enterprise/DC instead of it balancing towards a more competitive centre.
Eh, xeon 2690 was released 2012q1 at 8 cores, 2690v4 was 2016q1 at 14 cores. Same suggested customer price. Clock speed dropped a bit, but IPC was way up (AES-NI had a big throughput increase among other things). IIRC, desktop core counts were pretty stagnant, but a Haswell/Broadwell desktop chip at the same corecount and similar clocks was much faster than a Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge.
During 2012-2016 AMD was firmly in the Bulldozer disaster.
In 2017, Zen1 came out, and Intel's tick/tock mostly stopped. Zen1 was better than Bulldozer, but not better than Intel. Zen2 in 2019 was the big moment, and Intel hadn't done much. I recall an interview where the AMD person (might have been Jim Keller) said they had been targetting Zen2 to be competitive with what they thought Intel would have when it came out. Since Intel was in their pipeline bubble, Zen2 was a big win.
Intel had something very close to a monopoly for a long time. ARM wasn't taken seriously for desktop or server applications, and AMD was unable to compete with Intel's top-end CPUs until Zen (and with it Ryzen and Epyc) came around.
yeah - I wouldn't bet against Intel.
they might have floundered in the past.
panther lakes I hear are pretty competitive with some of the apple silicone.
Intel Panther Lake is a serious improvement over the previous Intel CPUs, both in energy efficiency and in GPU performance. The good energy efficiency is a good sign for Intel's 18A CMOS fabrication process.
Nevertheless, it is worrying that the computers with Panther Lake CPUs have become much more expensive in comparison with their equivalents of last year with Arrow Lake, and this before adding the hugely increased costs for DRAM and SSDs.
It is also confusing for buyers that the 300-series Panther Lake part numbers that appear to be replacements for the previous 200-series Arrow Lake in most cases correspond to lower technical specifications, i.e. a much smaller GPU and lower clock frequencies.
The Panther Lake models that have the new big and very good GPU are extremely expensive and also hard to find, despite the fact that the GPU continues to be produced by TSMC. Perhaps TSMC has raised its price and prioritizes other customers, so Intel cannot get enough big GPUs, but even the Panther Lake models with the very small GPU (much smaller than Intel has used in many years for its mobile CPUs) have become far too expensive.
Because Panther Lake introduced a few important new features that could have been interesting for experiments in software development (e.g. FRED), I intended to buy some mini-PC with Panther Lake, but I gave up because even one that would cost double in comparison with the mini-PC with Arrow Lake H from last year that I have (i.e. around $1000 as barebone, instead of around $500) would be a downgrade in specs, instead of being an upgrade.
Intel is doing well. They have 18A yields up to 85% at Fab 52. That's huge for the foundry business: the best foundries are not all in Asia now.
Rumor is they're moving Nova Lake production mostly in-house due to 18A success.