… Tweet opens in a new tab Unlike AMD and many other chip manufacturers, Intel both designs and fabricates its own processors. The usual process involves building top chips from the center of the wafer, while the edge pieces are often trashed because they're not viable. …
… This makes sense because camera hardware accounts for less than 15% of a flagship smartphone's bill of materials, compared to 25-30% for displays and processors. …
… GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and IBM are pushing ahead with plans for a hybrid 14-20nm process, in which chips would marry 14nm front-end manufacturing with 20nm interconnects. …
… Intel's 28nm modems are built by TSMC and that foundry handled some of the company's SoFIA chips and manufacturing for the related Rockchip deal some of the SoFIA tablet and smartphone processors never went into production, but the Rockchip processors supposedly did . …
… This has become particularly important as process nodes have shrunk -- NAND floating gates leak more at smaller process geometries. …
… Ming‑Chi Kuo—who accurately predicted Apple's MacBook Neo and its cancellation of the rumored entry-level Vision Pro —says OpenAI is working with Qualcomm and MediaTek on custom processors tuned for on‑device AI, and with Apple supplier Luxshare Precision as the exclusive manufacturing partner. …
… Without EUV manufacturing equipment, China has no path to advanced manufacturing nodes. Other Technology Improvements There are other ways that China could improve its semiconductor manufacturing without moving to new nodes. …
TSMC has announced the completion of its 5nm design infrastructure, with support for a wide variety of processor development. …
… Long-term, we expect the disruption from any manufacturing problem to be minimal. …
… In many ways, it's a company at a crossroads, grappling with manufacturing issues at a difficult moment, just as the microprocessor industry is evolving in new and interesting ways. …