AI data center demand is eating a ton of the volume of TSMCs leading edge nodes which causes price hikes and not enough volume to go around, so Qualcomm is looking to dip back into Samsung and Nvidia to dip into Intel fabs, among other companies looking to do the same.
Let's hope the demand slows down, as these are the only 3 fabs capable of producing leading edge chips and it takes years to scale volume further
Though if their process node was competitive in performance, Qualcomm, apple, or others would likely be trying to mass order Samsung's product instead of TSMC. It's highly unlikely Samsung is on par with TSMC 2nm
It's not that simple. Products are made for specific nodes and the products that are selling today were designed for TSMC. For future products pretty much everyone is evaluating Samsung and Intel as well as TSMC.
Samsung had their 2nm ready at basically the same time as TSMC, why do you think they designed everything for TSMC without also testing Samsung's 2nm for viability/efficiency/cost as well?
I feel like you are drawing a bunch of conclusions on incomplete data, using more and more assumptions to try and strengthen your position.
First of all, we don't know which products will use what node yet. You are just assuming everyone is fighting for TSMC N2 and won't use Samsung. That remains to be seen. You might be right, but you might also be wrong.
Secondly, these nodes are typically developed together with a company. That requires years of planning and collaboration. For example Apple has been pre-funding the development of new nodes at TSMC since sometime in 2010. Now Nvidia is also part of that prefunding. This means that both Apple and Nvidia are investing billions upon billions of dollars into the next node before it is even ready, and as a result get some special deals. Just because Samsung and TSMC might release a node at roughly the same time doesn't mean these companies aren't already heavily invested into one over the other.
Thirdly, the node itself might be really good but the yields could be bad. This could mean that the chips using the node are all really good, but they become expensive to make and/or can't keep up with the demand.
There are probably far more things that I am forgetting or don't know about as well but my point is that this is a very complex situation so I think it is premature to just look at some rumor about capacity allocation and then go "oh, I guess X is better than Y because otherwise everyone would be fighting for Y".
I mean all my conclusions are drawn from all the rumors and articles posted over the past year, it's not like any meaningful data is ever published for people to see until there are real world chips in hand and even then it's often comparing apples to oranges. That said I think if Samsung had a competitive advantage on their 2nm process node they would
1) Be screaming it from the rooftops
2) Have gained additional orders from Nvidia or other companies who see value in their new process node.
The fact that they are coming across as an afterthought to save money implies they have an inferior product.
AI data center demand is eating a ton of the volume of TSMCs leading edge nodes which causes price hikes and not enough volume to go around, so Qualcomm is looking to dip back into Samsung and Nvidia to dip into Intel fabs, among other companies looking to do the same.
Let's hope the demand slows down, as these are the only 3 fabs capable of producing leading edge chips and it takes years to scale volume further
Hell nvidia is triple diverifying, considering they are reactivating the 3060 and are making switch 2 chips, both of which are on samsung 10nm
Hope a better naming scheme is comming too, the current one is just mental
God I hope not, afaik we haven't seen any proof the Samsung 2nm node is at all competitive with tsmc 2nm, or even superior to different tsmc 3nm nodes
Sd 8 gen 1 2.0 electric boogaloo
The potential use of Samsung's 2 nm process in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 could significantly enhance performance and efficiency.
Thats bas news from what i remember
So you remember the good old ol'days of bad 2nm chips. Cool, or should I say, hot?
We don't have proof of it being bad or good. And we don't even know if Qualcomm will clock it the same as TSMC version to begin with.
People don't understand that a different node is a different node.
Because they were bad at this doesn't mean they will be bad at that and vice versa.
Remember the snapdragon 810? TSMC.
Though if their process node was competitive in performance, Qualcomm, apple, or others would likely be trying to mass order Samsung's product instead of TSMC. It's highly unlikely Samsung is on par with TSMC 2nm
It's not that simple. Products are made for specific nodes and the products that are selling today were designed for TSMC. For future products pretty much everyone is evaluating Samsung and Intel as well as TSMC.
Samsung had their 2nm ready at basically the same time as TSMC, why do you think they designed everything for TSMC without also testing Samsung's 2nm for viability/efficiency/cost as well?
I feel like you are drawing a bunch of conclusions on incomplete data, using more and more assumptions to try and strengthen your position.
First of all, we don't know which products will use what node yet. You are just assuming everyone is fighting for TSMC N2 and won't use Samsung. That remains to be seen. You might be right, but you might also be wrong.
Secondly, these nodes are typically developed together with a company. That requires years of planning and collaboration. For example Apple has been pre-funding the development of new nodes at TSMC since sometime in 2010. Now Nvidia is also part of that prefunding. This means that both Apple and Nvidia are investing billions upon billions of dollars into the next node before it is even ready, and as a result get some special deals. Just because Samsung and TSMC might release a node at roughly the same time doesn't mean these companies aren't already heavily invested into one over the other.
Thirdly, the node itself might be really good but the yields could be bad. This could mean that the chips using the node are all really good, but they become expensive to make and/or can't keep up with the demand.
There are probably far more things that I am forgetting or don't know about as well but my point is that this is a very complex situation so I think it is premature to just look at some rumor about capacity allocation and then go "oh, I guess X is better than Y because otherwise everyone would be fighting for Y".
I mean all my conclusions are drawn from all the rumors and articles posted over the past year, it's not like any meaningful data is ever published for people to see until there are real world chips in hand and even then it's often comparing apples to oranges. That said I think if Samsung had a competitive advantage on their 2nm process node they would
1) Be screaming it from the rooftops
2) Have gained additional orders from Nvidia or other companies who see value in their new process node.
The fact that they are coming across as an afterthought to save money implies they have an inferior product.