American Economics Thread

tokenanalyst

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Tesla, SpaceX to use Intel 14A process to make AI chips at Musk's Terafab-NA.

Elon Musk says his TeraFab facilities will use Intel's 14A process technology to make AI chips — SpaceX will be responsible for high-volume chip manufacturing in likely Intel tech licensing deal​


CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the EV maker plans to use Intel's
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next-generation 14A manufacturing process to make chips at its Terafab project, an advanced AI chip complex Musk has ‌envisioned in Austin.

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@tokenanalyst this is an interesting development that could reshape American semiconductor industry. 14A is advanced 1.4nm node based on RibbonFET Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors. your thoughts on this development.
Remain to be seen if they will get good yields. I mean, Intel was having trouble no long ago with their 14A process, especially yield issues probably related to EUV lithography. Another issue is that Intel will have to divide their engineering teams to support Elon quest for high end chips, something that I think will weight down on Intel. Is long learning curve and Elon is skipping almost everything.
HSMC failed because the CEO wanted to start with 14nm and 7nm without zero experience and once the reality kicked in of the difficulty of these advanced nodes the company when down pretty fast, so have to be seen if Terafab is going to be Elon HSMC moment or Elon TSMC.

Or is going to be like Japan Rapidus, they get big money from the government and they have cool tech but I don't see the customers and revenue. The issue here is that the Japan government can support Rapidus for a long time until they get costumers but given Elon track record is probably that he will drop the project once get to expensive.
 

sunnymaxi

Colonel
Registered Member
Remain to be seen if they will get good yields. I mean, Intel was having trouble no long ago with their 14A process, especially yield issues probably related to EUV lithography. Another issue is that Intel will have to divide their engineering teams to support Elon quest for high end chips, something that I think will weight down on Intel. Is long learning curve and Elon is skipping almost everything.
HSMC failed because the CEO wanted to start with 14nm and 7nm without zero experience and once the reality kicked in of the difficulty of these advanced nodes the company when down pretty fast, so have to be seen if Terafab is going to be Elon HSMC moment or Elon TSMC.

Or is going to be like Japan Rapidus, they get big money from the government and they have cool tech but I don't see the customers and revenue. The issue here is that the Japan government can support Rapidus for a long time until they get costumers but given Elon track record is probably that he will drop the project once get to expensive.
Hmmm.. i actually forgot to mention one very important thing.

all this happened coz of one man. ''Luo Weiren'' intel poached TSMC brain last year. intel is also adapting High NA-EUV.

Image
 

tokenanalyst

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Hmmm.. i actually forgot to mention one very important thing.

all this happened coz of one man. ''Luo Weiren'' intel poached TSMC brain last year. intel is also adapting High NA-EUV.

Image
TSMC likes multi-patterning, Intel hate multi-patterning. One of the reason of ASML push for High NA EUV was Intel insistence to reduce patterning steps, TSMC doesn't plan to adopt High-NA EUV until 2029, they prefer for Low NA EUV machines to increase their WPH productivity than fight an uphill battle dealing with the Issues that comes with HighNA EUV.
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In my opinion there is an already established engineering culture in Intel that I still can't see how one guy from TSMC is going to change. Who knows maybe they can. But I think that Intel is one of those US company that already become too stiff to change, like IBM.

But doesn't deny fact that Elon will start with a very new manufacturing process instead of a more proven one like Intel 3 (3nm) or Intel 4(7nm). So the risks are pretty high.
 

subotai1

Junior Member
Registered Member
Tesla, SpaceX to use Intel 14A process to make AI chips at Musk's Terafab-NA.

Elon Musk says his TeraFab facilities will use Intel's 14A process technology to make AI chips — SpaceX will be responsible for high-volume chip manufacturing in likely Intel tech licensing deal​


CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the EV maker plans to use Intel's
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
next-generation 14A manufacturing process to make chips at its Terafab project, an advanced AI chip complex Musk has ‌envisioned in Austin.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

@tokenanalyst this is an interesting development that could reshape American semiconductor industry. 14A is advanced 1.4nm node based on RibbonFET Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors. your thoughts on this development.
Given Musk's proclivity to change his mind, I would not be feeling very secure if I was Intel. Unless Musk is going to angle to buy Intel next. Even then I would still be worried.
 

Serb

Senior Member
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