The Ledger
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Goldberg: SMIC remains as far behind TSMC as a decade ago
“The most advanced Chinese foundry, SMIC, Shanghai Manufacturing, is still as far behind TSMC as it was 10 years ago, if not further behind.”
Goldberg: Only 'one and a half' foundries can produce leading-edge chips
“There's really only one and a half that can really produce at the leading edge, right? TSMC in Taiwan is just way ahead of everybody else. Samsung is kind of the half. They're close, but not quite there. And then there's nobody else.”
Goldberg: TSMC's Arizona fab will remain dependent on Taiwan's expertise
“It doesn't mean the U.S. Actually can do advanced chips because that plant is going to be entirely dependent on expertise and knowledge base from the mothership in Taiwan.”
Goldberg: TSMC's Arizona fab will lag leading-edge chips by half a generation
“And now I think that's actually gonna be a real plant in Arizona. And I think it's gonna have decent capacity enough to sort of satisfy the U.S. Military's needs and Apple's needs. And it will be, I don't think it'll be even a generation behind. I think it'll …”
Goldberg: China has failed to copy TSMC by poaching personnel
“And China for years has been trying to poach people out of TSMC to come build their foundries. And it just hasn't worked. Like you, it's something about the whole body of knowledge that's just too, you just can't copy and paste.”
Goldberg: New regional semiconductor plants build legacy nodes, not leading-edge chips
“If you dig into the details of what's actually getting built, it's not a leading edge plant. It's not, you know, it's not a three nanometer plant like TSMC is building on. It's a 180 nanometer plant, which is what? 15 years old, 20 years old. And you know, we …”
Evans: TSMC manufactures roughly 75% of current-generation semiconductor chips
“TSMC Really in the last five years moved from being one of many players in chips to dominating cutting into chip. So, you know, current generation chips are, I forget the number, three quarters TSMC.”
Evans: TSMC makes 5nm chips while Intel is stuck above 10nm
“TSMC is now making this chip at five nanometers, so that's how small the components are, when Intel is stuck at over 10 nanometers.”
Apple's custom silicon is likely 25% better than rival chips
“Apple now makes the, what's called the SAC, so the system on a chip, basically the CPU inside an iPhone and an iPad. While they design it themselves, it's manufactured for them by TSMC. That's probably 25% better than any other chip on the market.”