<story><title>Intel outsources Core i3 to TSMC&apos;s 5nm process</title><url>https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/intel-TSMC-5nm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jcstryker</author><text>Feels like we are quickly centralizing consumer chip fabrication into a single company. I guess the barrier for entry is so high and TSMC is just so far ahead.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kllrnohj</author><text>TSMC only just pulled out in front. Rewind the clock a mere 5 years and Intel was in front, with Samsung and GlobalFoundries basically tied for 2nd, and TSMC in dead last (they had the weakest 16nm&amp;#x2F;12nm of that generation - the only one who couldn&amp;#x27;t hit 30MTr&amp;#x2F;mm2 of the bunch)&lt;p&gt;GloFlo then backed out entirely of the race and Intel slammed into a wall.&lt;p&gt;Since then Samsung and TSMC were on &amp;quot;equal&amp;quot; ground at &amp;quot;10nm&amp;quot; (both ~52MTr&amp;#x2F;mm2, both released 2017) and again at &amp;quot;7nm&amp;quot; (both ~96MTr&amp;#x2F;mm2). It&amp;#x27;s not until 5nm that TSMC was actually clearly in-front of everyone else, with their 5nm being 173MTr&amp;#x2F;mm2 while Samsung&amp;#x27;s is only 127MTr&amp;#x2F;mm2.&lt;p&gt;In terms of &amp;quot;TSMC is just so far ahead.&amp;quot; Samsung&amp;#x27;s 3nm is supposed to use GAAFET while TSMC&amp;#x27;s 3nm will still be FinFET. So.. potentially Samsung re-claims the &amp;quot;crown&amp;quot; so to speak at 3nm. And Samsung does contract out their fabs - see Nvidia&amp;#x27;s RTX 3000 series. There&amp;#x27;s also no particular reason to believe that Intel is down for the count for good. They are a huge company with a huge amount of capital, they can fund a rough generation or two.</text></comment>
<story><title>Intel outsources Core i3 to TSMC&apos;s 5nm process</title><url>https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/intel-TSMC-5nm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jcstryker</author><text>Feels like we are quickly centralizing consumer chip fabrication into a single company. I guess the barrier for entry is so high and TSMC is just so far ahead.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bob1029</author><text>99% of the barrier is feature size. Producing the feature size starts with photolithography.&lt;p&gt;If you want to talk about centralizing concerns, look into the number of companies who can produce an EUV light source capable of supplying a photo tool with powerful &amp;amp; precise output 24&amp;#x2F;7&amp;#x2F;365.</text></comment>