> The GPU die will remain with TSMC
"The GPU die will remain with TSMC, but portions of the I/O die are expected to leverage Intel's 18A or the planned 14A process slated for 2028, contingent on yield improvements."
Reading between the lines: Nvidia will most likely design a TSMC version of those I/O die portions in case Intel fails.
Intel has a decades long reputation of failing its attempted foundry customers. Whether or not Nvidia's ownership stake is sufficient to overcome the inertia within Intel that has resulted in those failures remains to be seen.
On the other hand, it seems that Intel struggles to reach high clock frequencies in this new manufacturing process because the Panther Lake CPU models have lower clock frequencies than the corresponding Arrow Lake CPU models made by TSMC and the few Panther Lake models with maximum clock frequencies of 5 GHz or more (Core Ultra X7 and X9) are very expensive, so it is likely that their availability will be limited (due to low fabrication yields).
Therefore it is plausible that for now companies like NVIDIA and Apple will choose to use Intel only for low-risk products, as the article says.
TSMC plans their A14 process to be in high volume production in 2028. It will include backside power delivery introduced in their A14 process (expected 2026/2027 high volume production), which means it will be quite competitive with Intel.
https://semiwiki.com/wikis/industry-wikis/tsmc-a14-process-t... https://semiwiki.com/wikis/industry-wikis/%F0%9F%A7%A0-tsmc-...
There's an older article at https://www.igorslab.de/en/350-watts-for-nvidias-new-top-of-... which shows the breakdown of power consumption for GPUs. The GPU die itself is only 230W of the entire power budget.
heyheyhey•1w ago
insane_dreamer•1w ago