TSMC

Now it is more likely that Intel ends up chopped. TSMC and Broadcom are already rubbing their hands

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In the middle of last September, just two and a half months before leaving Intel, Pat Gelsinger revealed that the company’s board of directors was wearing the possibility of Escind your manufacturing business of semiconductors in A movement very similar to the AMD In 2009. This last company broke up its integrated circuit production subsidiary and created GlobalFoundries. Since then It has been objectively well. Intel pursues the same: recover financial health and increase its competitiveness. Gelsinger is already completely disconnected from Intel, but the possibility of separating the chips manufacturing subsidiary from the rest of the company is still on the table. However, like We explain to you At the end of November, if you finally decide to do so, you will not have complete freedom. And he will not have it because he has contracted obligations with the US government as a result of the reception of the 7,860 million dollars given by the Department of Commerce as a subsidy. And also of the 3.5 billion dollars which will receive from the Department of Defense to make chips for military applications. TSMC and Broadcom are interested in getting two essential parts of Intel Intel’s commitment to the US administration directly involves the splitting of its semiconductor manufacturing division in the form of an independent subsidiary. The US government has asked Intel to maintain the property of at least 50.1% of Intel Foundry if this business unit finally got to separate and acquire the form of a new private legal entity. And now more than ever this possibility is very tangible. TSMC is preparing an offer that would allow you to control the integrated circuit manufacturing plants of Intel According to The Wall Street Journal (TWSJ), which in the field of relations between companies does not usually give stitch without thread, TSMC and Broadcom are interested in getting two fundamental parts of Intel. The Taiwanese manufacturer of semiconductors, which leads the global market with A fee close to 60%you are preparing, always according to TWSJ, an offer that would allow you Control manufacturing plants Intel integrated circuits. At the current situation this strategic decision makes sense. TSMC is interested in developing its manufacturing infrastructure beyond Taiwan’s borders with the purpose of protecting its business if a war conflict between China and its country of origin is triggered. This company currently is building new plants of semiconductor production in Arizona (USA), Germany and Japan, but adding the factories that Intel has not only in the US, but also in Europe, Israel and Asia would allow him to consolidate his expansion very quickly. Interestingly in the middle of last October CC Wei, the current president and general director of TSMC, declared that he did not contemplate The possibility of buying Intel factories. However, it is reasonable that an executive with his responsibility Do not confirm an operation of this size until it is essentially closed. Whatever TSMC is not at all the only company that is interested in getting a piece of Intel. And is that, According to TWSJthe American chip designer Broadcom is also preparing an offer to get the integrated circuit design and marketing divisions of Intel. In any case, if the TSMC initiative will finally prosper will stumble in all likelihood with the government’s opposition led by Donald Trump. Currently it is unlikely that the administration approves the purchase of such an important division of an American company by a foreign company. Especially if, in addition, your business develops in a strategic industry such as semiconductors. Image | Intel More information | The Wall Street Journal In Xataka | Bill Gates has radiographed Intel. And his diagnosis is overwhelmingly accurate

Openai is finishing designing its own GPU for Ia. And we already know what agreement has arrived with TSMC

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Sam Altman and the rest of OpenAi’s directive dome are determined to stop using GPUs in the medium term artificial intelligence (AI) of Nvidia. We know it with certainty since January 2024. On that date Altman began a journey that pursued find investors with the necessary muscle To help your company Develop your own chip for AI. And, apparently, he had a good reason to do it that goes beyond reducing his dependence on Nvidia hardware. Just a few weeks earlier, in December 2023, Pat Gelsinger, the former general director of Intel, declared that the AI ​​industry is determined to leave behind CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). This technology brings together the compiler and development tools used by programmers to develop their software for NVIDIA GPUs, and replace it with another option in the projects that are already underway it is a problem. “The entire industry is determined to eliminate market CUDA (…) We see it as a shallow and small pit, so we are motivated to propose a broader set of technologies both to address training and innovation or science of data “, Gelsinger defended During the event “Ai Everywhere” held in New York. In addition, he assured that Google and OpenAi are two of the companies with a great specific weight in the AI ​​industry that they want to leave CUDA behind. TSMC is the ideal ally for Openai We do not say it. It is evident that Sam Altman believes it if we stick to the steps he has taken during the last months. A little over a year ago he began his conversations with TSMC, which is the largest semiconductor manufacturer on the planet with A market share close to 60%. Altman needed to explore the possibility that this Taiwanese company manufactured its GPU for ia. After all, TSMC produces the chips designed by NVIDIA or AMD, among other companies, for this scenario of use. TSMC will manufacture the chips for ia designed by Openai in its 3 nm node The negotiation that they had already culminated successfully. TSMC will produce the GPUs for AI designed by OpenAi. But this is not the only thing we know. According to SCMP These chips will be manufactured in the 3 NM node of TSMC, which is currently Its most advanced integration technology (In 2025 it will begin producing large -scale integrated circuits In the 2 Nm node). And, in addition, Openai has already started the final stage of design of its own GPU for AI, according to Reuters. This last information fits with the date on which the company led by Sam Altman began presumably. The two media that I just mentioned argue that during the next months OpenAI will send the preliminary design of its GPU to TSMC with the purpose of starting the first validation and production tests. This project phase is known in English as tape-out. At the moment neither OpenAi or TSMC have made official statements about the advances of their collaboration, but all the information in which we have just inquired is consistent enough to give it for good. After all, according to these sources, the Taiwanese chips manufacturer will begin large -scale production of the OpenAI GPU for 2026. Image | TSMC More information | SCMP | Reuters In Xataka | Some researchers claim to have created an AI as good as those of Openai and Deepseek for $ 50. And the data is real

Nvidia has a very strong and not quite unexpected ally against Depseek: TSMC

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Deepseek has convulsed the industry of the artificial intelligence (AI). The irruption of this free and open source Chinese model has questioned the need to use in training and inference processes Chips for very powerful and expensive. Like those designed by Nvidia, which leads with an unappealable roundness the hardware market for Ia. Even so, just ten days ago Deepseek caused Its market value fell abruptly. Since then the hardware used by this Chinese company has generated a lot of distrust. The Deepseek responsible argue that the infrastructure they have used to train their agglutin model 2,048 chips H800 of Nvidia. And that this process with 671,000 million parameters has cost 5.6 million dollars. However, some analysts defend that these figures do not reflect reality. The very juicy report prepared by SEMIANALYSIS He maintains that, in reality, the infrastructure used by Deepseek to train his AI model approximately 50,000 NVIDIA GPU with Hopper MicroAritecture. According to Dylan Patel, AJ Kourabi, Doug O’Laughlin and Reyk Knuhttsen, at least 10,000 of these chips are GPU H100 of Nvidia, and at least another 10,000 are GPU H800. The remaining chips, according to these analysts, are the cuts cut H20. The TSMC cowos packaging is a very strong support for Nvidia As we have just seen, at the current situation it is reasonable to have doubts about the hardware that Deepseek has used in the training of its model (in inference seems to be using the GPUs Ascend 910c of Huawei). And also about the real cost of this process, which could be much higher than the officially announced by this Chinese company. In any case, Depseek has poured uncertainty about the AI ​​market, and this is the reason why so many US technology companies have lost value. Whatever Nvidia has just received a very strong support from TSMC, which is the semiconductor manufacturer that produces its GPU. And is that, according to Digitimes Asiathis Taiwanese company has decided launch an expansion plan five years long for integrated circuit manufacturing capacity using its advanced cowos packaging technology (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate). According to Beth Kindigof the I/O Fund consultant, this technology will monopolize between 50 and 60% of the market in 2025 compared to 15% it supported during 2024. In 2024 TSMC he officially announced that he was building two cowos packaging plants in the town of Chiayi, housed in southern Taiwan The high demand for GPUs for AI with Blackwell MicroAritectura de Nvidia is largely responsible for the implementation of this plan. The company led by Jensen Huang can respond better to the needs of its customers and will see how its competitiveness is increased in a phase in which Depseek and other Chinese companies represent a challenge. In March 2024 TSMC officially announced which was building two cowos packaging plants in the town of Chiayi, housed in southern Taiwan. However, this is not all. He also shuffled the option to put a plant more specialized in this advanced packaging technology in Japan, presumably on the island of Kyushu, in which This company is building at the moment two semiconductor production plants of avant -garde. In any case, there is something else. And it is that Chiayi plants will be trained to work, in addition to the packaging cowos, with advanced Info and Soic technologies (System on Integrated Chips). It is evident that TSMC wants to cover your back well and look to the future to prevent its production capacity from being threatened by a bottleneck. An interesting note: currently the Cowos packaging is being used with the AMD Instinct Mi250 chips and with the A100, H100, H200, B100 and B200 NVIDIA GPUs, as well as in its derivatives. The review used in these last two chips, the B100 and B200, is known as Cowos-L. In 2025 TSMC will be able to process no less than 60,000 wafers per month using its advanced packaging technology. Image | TSMC More information | Digitimes Asia | Yahoo! Finance In Xataka | Samsung is preparing to give TSMC a bars where it hurts most: the manufacture of the chips for ia

Intel was about to snatch Apple as a client from TSMC. Having achieved its story would be another

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Apple is the largest TSMC customer. By difference. In 2021 26% of income From this manufacturer of Taiwanese semiconductors came from the signing of the apple, a figure much higher than 5.8% derived from its activity for Mediatek, which was then its second best client. All probability These numbers will barely varied In the following years. In any case, the narrow bond that these two companies have maintained has caused Apple to be a priority customer for TSMC. Those of Cupertino were the first to have access to the 3 nm lithographic node which is underway in TSMC plants in Taiwan. And Apple will have priority access, as expected, to the 2 nm lithographic node With GAA transistors (Gate-alall-around) in which TSMC will begin large -scale manufacturing for 2025. That of these two companies is a story full of complicities and alliances that have allowed both to be reinforced. However, everything was about to be very different. Intel tried to convince Apple The company led by Tim Cook began to develop its own SOC for its smartphones and tablets between 2009 and 2010. At that time Apple decided that Samsung, which is one of the three semiconductor manufacturers From the planet next to Intel and TSMC, be responsible for producing its chips. However, there was a problem: Samsung already was already one of the integrated circuit manufacturers that had some of the most advanced integration technologies, but it was also a direct competitor of Apple. This rivalry led Tim Cook to opt for other options, and one of them, presumably the most attractive, consisted of allying with TSMC and trusting that this Taiwanese company was responsible for manufacturing its semiconductors. However, this It was not the only option Cook had on the table. He also considered the possibility of working with Intel or Texas Instruments. The problem was that Intel had barely manufacturing chips for third parties, and, on the other hand, Texas Instruments integration technologies were not advanced enough. “Simply Intel does not know what to do to exercise as a chip factory for third parties” Despite all this, Paul Otellinithe general director of Intel at that time, met with Tim Cook in early 2011 with the purpose of convincing him that Intel was his best option. And it must have been very persuasive. In fact, the head of Apple decided to stop the commitment he had already reached with TSMC for two months with the purpose of evaluating Otellini’s proposal. Morris Changthe founder of TSMC, worried a lot when he learned that Tim Cook had temporarily stopped his commitment and decided to travel immediately to the US to meet with Apple’s general director. Chang has revealed during an interview with Acquired What happened during those negotiation days: “Intel’s general director approached Tim Cook and asked him to consider his company. At that time Intel was the main supplier of the Apple Mac line. I knew many of Intel’s clients in Taiwan, none of them liked it because Intel always acted as if they were the only ones who had microprocessors. Even if Intel tried to do business in good faith, he had a conflict of interest. “ However, Chang adds something else. “We have learned to attend all the requests of our clients. We always respond with courtesy, but Intel has never done that. All Intel clients in Taiwan who knew wanted to change the supplier,” recalls Morris Chang. Anyway, when the TSMC founder spoke with Tim Cook the latter had already made a decision. A decision that reassured the veteran Taiwanese engineer: “Simply Intel does not know what to do to exercise as a chip factory for third parties.” This is the phrase that, according to Morris Chang, Tim Cook said to let him know that Apple would seal his alliance with TSMC. The rest is history. Image | Asia Society | Flickr (Fortune Ceo Initiative, David Geller) More information | Acquired In Xataka | The new TSMC factory in the US has achieved something “impossible”: overcome the performance of Taiwan plants

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