wafers

Get ready because NVIDIA “needs a lot of wafers”

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The foreign relations of the United States are no longer a solely governmental matter. Figures like Tim Cook they have acting as ambassadors in recent years, receiving treatment and baths from political entities worthy of a high-ranking politician, and the baton in both the global technological and economic conversation has been taken by another CEO of a ‘Big Tech’. Jensen Huang He is the boss of NVIDIA, and recently has visited Taiwan to remember something key: Nvidia would not be possible without Taiwan. And he has taken the opportunity to put pressure on the factory that moves the technological world: TSMC. The Billion Dollar Dinner. Huang has been touring his home island of Taiwan. Curiously, it is also the epicenter of the global technology industry as it is home to companies as powerful as asus or MediaTek, but also from Foxconn and those who create most of the advanced chips in our devices: TSMC. To close out the trip, Huang met two dozen people for dinner at a local restaurant in the event dubbed by the press as “the billion-dollar banquet.” More than a dinner with friends, it is an institutional event because NVIDIA is the one that is calling the shots in this current era of AI, but TSMC is the one who has the upper hand. Get your batteries. In that environment, and in an improvised manner, a press conference was held in which Huang made it clear that 2026 will be a crucial year, but he also gave an interesting headline: TSMC needs to work very hard this year because I need a lot of wafers.” Local media reported it. crossed out It may be a joking comment, but it is one of those jokes that are not jokes. The CEO of NVIDIA added what TSMC is doing”an incredible job” and predicted that they will increase their capacity by more than 100% over the next decade.” No pressure, go. TSMC is key. Just a few weeks ago, TSMC announced that its spending would increase by almost 40% to reach $56 billion in 2026, with additional increases planned for both 2028 and 2029. It makes perfect sense considering that it is the company that factory not only almost all of the world’s advanced chips, but it is the heart of NVIDIA’s graphics cards that have become the standard of artificial intelligence. The Taiwanese company is not only manufacturing in its country, but is taking steps to expand throughout Europe (with the Germany’s vaunted factory) and you already have a plant in the United States that will expand in the short term. And NVIDIA itself will be one of the first customers of the advanced chips that TSMC produces on US soil. If the chain fails, the AI ​​gets into trouble. The problem is that Huang doesn’t just need wafers: he needs RAM, and we are in one of the component crises deepest in history. That unbridled spending on components for powering data centers for AI It has left us consumers without the opportunity to buy components for our PC at a consistent price. First was the RAM and then the SSDs because companies like TSMC, Micron or Samsung cannot cope with production. Some -the aforementioned Micron- has left the component market for consumers because they need to run all their plants for only one purpose: powering those data centers. And the chain cannot failsomething that Huang himself has stated, pointing out that they will need a lot of memory this year – graphics cards also have memory inside – and that “the entire supply chain will be a challenge in 2026 because demand will be much greater. In short: a challenge for manufacturers, a headache for users. For Huang, a blessingsince your company is the one that leads the way in an artificial intelligence that, according to him“it has become something really useful.” Images | TSMC, NVIDIA In Xataka | The situation with RAM prices is so desperate that there are already those who build their own memory at home

Openai signs with Samsung and SK Hynix for a potential chips demand of 900,000 wafers per month. It is an absurd figure

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In Seoul A package of agreements was closed which reflects how far the career for artificial intelligence is coming. Openai sat down with Samsung and SK to advance his project Stargate And the companies pointed to a goal that surprises on its own: 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. The plan, according to the parties, goes through reinforcing memory production and studying new data centers in South Korea. All this was announced after a series of meetings of Sam Altman, business leaders and President Lee Jae-Myung himself. The appointment at the Seoul presidential office brought together Sam Altman With the leaders of the aforementioned Asian technological conglomerates, in the presence of the president Lee Jae-Myung. The tone was shared: Korea seeks to consolidate as one of the three global powers in artificial intelligence and OpenAi needs to anchor its Stargate project in regions with technological muscle. This lace explains the interest of both parties in formalizing agreements that cover from the memory supply to the construction of new data centers, with a long -term view. An objective that can tension the entire memory sector The volume that has been put on the table is disproportionate if compared to the market. According to Techinsightsthe global capacity of production of 300 millimeter DRAM was about 2.07 million per month in 2024 and would grow to 2.25 million in 2025. reaching 900,000 would mean about 39% of all that capacity. No individual manufacturer reaches such a figure alone, so that the magnitude of the agreement reflects both Openai’s ambition and the growing pressure to ensure the supply of advanced memory. Signed documents include preliminary commitments to expand memory production and evaluate additional infrastructure in South Korea. Among them is the participation of Samsung SDS in the development of data centers, as well as Samsung C&T and Samsung Heavy Industries in its design and construction. The Ministry of Science and ICT contemplates evaluating site outside the Metropolitan Area of ​​Seoul, and SK Telecom has signed an agreement to study the viability of a center in the southwest of the country. It is also proposed to explore the deployment of Chatgpt Enterprise and API capabilities in corporate operations. A key point in all this is in the difference between using and training a model. When someone consults a chatbot, infrastructure of inference is activated, much less demanding. But to train a new generation system, thousands of chips are needed working in parallel, each accompanied by High performance memory modules. This scale multiplies the need for servers, cooling systems and electrical power. In that context, guaranteeing hundreds of thousands of wafers per month does not seem an excess, but a way of ensuring that the next wave of models has the necessary material support. Stargate Data Center in the United States Openai’s computing muscle relies on huge draft alliances. With Oracle and SoftBankthe company prepares five data centers that would provide several capacity gigawatts. Nvidia, meanwhile, has announced that it would invest up to 100,000 million dollars and that would give access to more than 10 gigawatts through their training systems. Openai’s trajectory is not understood without Microsoft, his first great partner. The Initial bet of 1 billion in 2019 and the subsequent investment of 10,000 million gave access to the Azure cloud, Key to train models They promoted Chatgpt. Over time, however, Sam Altman’s company has begun to reduce that dependence. The last movements mark a change of course towards infrastructure in which OpenAI has more direct control, a way of making sure they are not conditioned to a single supplier. It should be remembered that many of the ads remain preliminary. Letters of intention and memoranda mark the will to advance, But concrete details have not yet closed. At the scale that Stargate raises, the risks are evident: from bottlenecks in the production of high performance memory to energy availability to feed facilities of several gigawatts. To this are added the necessary permits and the complexity of coordinating projects with so many actors. At the moment, the signed opens a path, but it remains to be seen what materializes and in what deadlines. Images | Sam Altman | Samsung | SK Hynix | Xataka with Grok In Xataka | I’ve been hooked to Sora 2 for two days: I’m generating absurd memes where I am the protagonist and I can’t stop

TSMC is going to upload the price of its chips wafers 10% in 2025. And users will not be able to dodge this blow

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Just a week ago we told you that Nvidia has decided Increase the price of your GPU for games between 5 and 10%. And that of his chips to artificial intelligence (AI) up to 15%. This decision is the result of The multiple crises to which the company led by Jensen Huang and a business strategy that seeks to protect its benefits in a moment of uncertainty. But first of all it has been promoted by the increase in TSMC prices. This Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer, The Major on the Planethas increased the price of its most advanced nodes and its customers will spread this increase throughout the entire production, distribution and sale chain. Nvidia is one of them, but it is important that we do not overlook that in the TSMC client portfolio they also break through Apple, AMD, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Broadcom or Intel, among many other companies. The TSMC leadership position protects its competitiveness from price increases It is a fact: TSMC is going to raise the price of your wafers by 10% for 2025. This information It has been circulating for several weeks by the Asian media specialized in the semiconductor industry, and at the situation of current uncertainty that has triggered the commercial warfth that Eeuu and China is perfectly credible. It is not yet clear what nodes will be affected by the climb, but it is reasonable to assume that little by little it will reach all TSMC avant -garde integration technologies. Presumably the US government will activate in July, after a 90 -day suspension, its tariffs on imported chips This context invites us to ask ourselves what has caused CC Wei and the directive dome of this company to make this decision, and in all likelihood there is no single reason. However, and from this we can be safe, TSMC, NVIDIA and most of the companies directly involved in the semiconductor industry foresee that The US government will activate in Julyafter a 90 -day suspension, Your tariffs on imported semiconductors. As we have just seen, many of the TSMC clients are US companies. This Taiwanese company is developing Your production infrastructure Within the US with the purpose of protecting their administration tariff business, but for the moment almost all its integrated avant -garde circuits leave their Taiwan plants. And future tariffs will increase them when entering the US. In addition, make chips in the country led by Donald Trump It’s more expensive than doing it in Taiwanso it would be unrealistic to assume that The price of wafers TSMC will moderate when its new Arizona plant begins to manufacture large circuits integrated in the N4 node (5 Nm) on a large scale. Image | TSMC More information | Phone Arena In Xataka | TSMC is willing to take control of Intel chips factories. What you don’t want is to do it alone

Intel has produced 30,000 wafers in its Uve High-NA teams

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Joseph Bonetti is one of Intel’s engineers who defend that this company is about to be competitive again in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. This statement of yours a few days ago expresses your vision very well: “Intel leaders, Board of Directors of Intel and Donald Trump administration, please, They do not sell or give control From Intel Foundry to TSMC just when Intel is taking the technological front and starting to take off. It would be a terrible and demoralizing mistake. “ Although he does not expressly mention them, Bonetti suggests between the lines when he speaks of “the technological front” that Intel will take advantage of his experience with the teams of extreme ultraviolet lithography (UVE) and High Opening to recover leadership in the production of integrated circuits that lost many years ago. These machines produced by the Dutch company ASML are the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment that currently exists. AND Intel has two in the testing phase in its Hillsboro (USA) plant. Next stop: 1.4 Nm The main chips manufacturers on the planet are beginning to gradually try the new ASML photolithography equipment, but Intel was the first company that was done with them. In fact, at the end of February 2024 his engineers concluded successfully The process ‘First Light’which is nothing other than the first phase of the installation and calibration of these machines. Just then they began to do the first tests with them. The 14A lithography (1.4 Nm) will be the first one in which Intel will use the Uve High opening equipment of ASML The 14A lithography (1.4 Nm) will be the first one in which Intel will use the UVE High opening equipment of ASML. His Roadmap It does not reveal the exact moment in which this integration technology will be ready, but it is reasonable to assume that this moment It will arrive in 2026 Because in 2027 the 14A-E lithography will be prepared, which will be nothing other than a review of the original 14A integration technology. Anyway, Intel’s current itinerary does not conclude with this node. Keyvan Esfarjani, which is one of the top responsible for the subsidiary of this company that specializes in the manufacture of integrated circuits, confirmed During the Intel Foundry Direct Connect event of 2024 that the production of chips in the 10A node (which will presumably be equivalent to the 1 Nm lithographs of its competitors) will begin at the end of 2027. It makes sense if we are in mind that in 2026 this company plans Have prepared the 14A node, although, yes, the manufacture of 1 NM semiconductors on a large scale will arrive later (possibly well entered 2028). Anyway, if what we want is to take the pulse at the current moment of Intel the news is promising. Last Monday this company confirmed that it has already prosecuted 30,000 wafers in its EUV High-Na Twinscan Exe: 5000 teams. And he has done it in a quarter. This performance would be modest if we were talking about fully implanted commercial technology, but it is promising if we consider that Intel and ASML engineers are still mired in The test and development phase of semiconductors with the new haute opening equipment. In fact, it is currently reasonable to anticipate that Intel will be the first chips manufacturer that will place integrated circuits produced with this technology, which could give it a very important competitive advantage. Image | ASML More information | Reuters In Xataka | Bill Gates has radiographed Intel. And his diagnosis is overwhelmingly accurate

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