Intel rumored to order TSMC 3nm chips for Meteor Lake graphics tiles

[Daniel Sims]

Rumor mill: News from Taiwan claims Intel has asked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to make 3nm chips for its upcoming Meteor Lake processors. If true, it adds to the multiple node processes that Meteor Lake will incorporate in its new "tiled" design.

Taiwan news outlet Commercial Times claims that the graphics processing hardware in the Meteor Lake CPUs will be TSMC 3nm chips. Industry insiders say TSMC will start producing them before the end of 2022. East Asia-based financial analyst Dan Nystedt noted Intel plans to package them with compute tiles of its own design for Meteor Lake processors.

Intel's 14th-generation Core processors (Meteor Lake) are supposed to launch in 2023. The 12th-generation Alder Lake CPUs just recently made their debut, and the 13th generation Raptor Lakes are supposed to land sometime next year.

Intel will tap TSMC to produce 3nm graphics chips (GPU tiles) by end-2022, media report, citing industry sources. Intel will package the tiles with compute (CPU) tiles made at Intel, for the Meteor Lake launch in 2023, the report says. $INTC $TSM #semiconductors

— Dan Nystedt (@dnystedt) November 22, 2021

Meteor Lake will separate its various components—graphics, I/O, and compute—into separate chiplets, which Intel terms "tiles" in a new packaging method called Foveros. Each will use a different node process. The compute tiles will use Intel's 7nm "Intel 4" process. Commercial Times says the I/O tiles will use either TSMC's N5 or its N4 process, while the GPU tiles will use a 3nm process.

Last week, CNET photographed one of these tiles on one of Intel's Meteor Lake test processors. These will be Intel's first 7nm processors. Competitor AMD's latest Zen3 CPUs already use TSMC's 7nm process, though the 10nm Alder Lakes already perform favorably against them in benchmarks.

Image credit: Stephen Shankland

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92360-intel-rumored-order-tsmc-3nm-chips-meteor-lake.html

 

[Lounds]

Why can't intel call them chiplets lol.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

Why can't intel call them chiplets lol.

Why?

AMD doesn't make chiplets, they make turds

As we will clearly see, when AMD and Intel are on the same process node from the same foundry, Intel will kick AMD to the curb and stomp them to a pulp

Intel is the authoritah and can call them whatever it wants

 

[hahahanoobs]

Only AMD could blow a three year lead in four years.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

Only AMD could blow a three year lead in four years.

Had Intel and AMD been on the same process by the same foundry, they would never have had a per core lead

number of cores, sure, but Intel could do that too

The only thing AMD beats Intel at is performance per dollar and that's the only fight I want to see from now on

 

[Vigilance]

Why can't intel call them chiplets lol.

Because the interconnect technology that connects the dies is fundamentaly different.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Had Intel and AMD been on the same process by the same foundry, they would never have had a per core lead

number of cores, sure, but Intel could do that too

The only thing AMD beats Intel at is performance per dollar and that's the only fight I want to see from now on

AMD can't survive financially being the cheaper option. Those days are over. AMD got some new clothes (Zen) and some new friends (a competent CEO and a lot more shareholders), and if you ask any rich person if they would be okay with lower margins than what was expected, they'll laugh in your face and call security to have you removed from the premises. They may even sue you.

AMD can't back out now.

 

[Watzupken]

Had Intel and AMD been on the same process by the same foundry, they would never have had a per core lead

number of cores, sure, but Intel could do that too

The only thing AMD beats Intel at is performance per dollar and that's the only fight I want to see from now on

That is "IF" Intel was on the same node. Which in reality is not the case. I know from the sounds of it, your preference is Intel, however, when we look at CPU performance, we look at the full package, and not just at fab. As an end user, I am looking for the best performance, price and power efficiency, and I won't care whatever node is being used as long as it delivers. In my opinion, Intel's popularity started to wane even before AMD moved to 7nm. Previously they were using Global Foundries' 12/14nm, which is inferior to Intel's 14nm. And yet, it gave people a viable alternative to Intel's 4 cores consumer CPU, which by the way cost a bomb at the high end. Intel's failure to move past 14nm quickly and the bad habit of charging consumers a lot with little improvement over the years proved to be their downfall the moment a viable product appears. FYI I don't take sides because I go with what is best for my use case. I've used a combination of AMD and Intel systems over the years, and my current gaming rig is powered by an Intel CPU. I chose Intel because while power consumption is high, the build cost is lower than a Ryzen 5000 series, and it suits my use case.

 

[Watzupken]

Had Intel and AMD been on the same process by the same foundry, they would never have had a per core lead

number of cores, sure, but Intel could do that too

The only thing AMD beats Intel at is performance per dollar and that's the only fight I want to see from now on

Intel's 10nm is supposed to be superior to TSMC's 7nm. I am not sure how true is that, but from what we can observe, Intel generally outperforms AMD in single core because they threw power efficiency out of the window to try and hold on to the crown. If you look at Tiger Lake H vs Ryzen 5000 H, I feel both are pretty close in terms of performance, and trading blows in various tests. The Ryzen system generally edges out because it offers the best bang for buck, though I won't attribute the lower price entirely to the CPU. Overall, the Ryzen chips don't use as much power and by default, don't need some beefy components on their motherboards to deliver sustainable performance. You will see the same issue with desktop motherboards where you need to shell out more money for a good motherboard that will not throttle under the power requirements of an Intel chip. For my case, I opted for an Asus Strix B460, which itself is not cheap. There are cheap alternatives, but HardwareUnbox also showed that cheap Intel boards cripples performance.

In my opinion, it is not just performance per dollar that Intel is losing. I suspect in the enterprise/ data center market, the high power draw may have also contributed to their lost in market share. ARM is growing rapidly in the most lucrative market, at the expense of Intel. AMD is also growing in this space, but likely not as fast as custom ARM chips.

 

[Peter Farkas]

So after all these years (of Intel being stuck on 10nm++ or whatever its called) we may arrive to the point when Intel is getting its nodes shrunk and the good old race will carry on once more.
I hope Intel will bring more efficient and competitive products as well as its famous manufacturing capacity. That, along with the resulting competition, will hopefully drive prices down and ease the so called "chip shortage"...

Do you guys know when Intel will be opening its foundries and make chips for others?

 

[Nintenboy01]

The fact that Zen 3 isn't THAT much worse in IPC compared to Alder Lake despite being on comparable nodes and being 4-wide versus 6-wide is still impressive. Zen 4 will likely be at least 6-wide as well so might beat Raptor Lake's IPC or at least trade blows.

 

[Shadowboxer]

The only thing AMD beats Intel at is performance per dollar and that's the only fight I want to see from now on

I dont completely agree, there are cases where the reverse is true. That i5 12600K unit is beating my Ryzen7 5800X in most cases and it’s considerably cheaper. Sure you pay more for a Z690 board than an X570 board but the difference isn’t that big and a Z690 board has PCIe5 and thunderbolt (or even DDR5 if you’re crazy).

A combination of Intels delays and a partnership with TSMC saved AMD for sure but it seems that Intel has been awoken.

 

[Dimitrios]

I find it sad how INTEL with it's dirty business ethics and the amount of money they have and man power little AMD still hangs with them every so often curb stomps them. I don't like bashing another company but you INTEL fanboys are something. It's sad where INTEL is now and other companies don't want to deal with them like APPLE. Imagine if AMD had the money and the man power what they could do.

They were literally running on peanuts and were down to $2 a share. As long as Lisa Su is with AMD INTEL and AMD will both be taking blows. My point is INTEL SHOULD be doing way better than what they are doing now. APPLE and others know INTEL isn't the greatest anymore.

 

[etempest]

I find it sad how INTEL with it's dirty business ethics and the amount of money they have and man power little AMD still hangs with them every so often curb stomps them. I don't like bashing another company but you INTEL fanboys are something. It's sad where INTEL is now and other companies don't want to deal with them like APPLE. Imagine if AMD had the money and the man power what they could do.

They were literally running on peanuts and were down to $2 a share. As long as Lisa Su is with AMD INTEL and AMD will both be taking blows. My point is INTEL SHOULD be doing way better than what they are doing now. APPLE and others know INTEL isn't the greatest anymore.

Intel got a new CEO in Feb 21 that turning things around. Unlike the previous CEO, he is an actual engineer, long time Intel employee, and designed the 80486 chip. He has long term plans over short term profits to get Intel back on track. The fact Intel is outsourcing to TSMC until they can get build there own fabs that are capable is a sign of this.

Intel got compliant for far too long and has used cheap tactics vs innovation. Will be curious to see if Intel shows it's old colors if they start dominating AMD again.

 

[HardReset]

Intel got a new CEO in Feb 21 that turning things around. Unlike the previous CEO, he is an actual engineer, long time Intel employee, and designed the 80486 chip. He has long term plans over short term profits to get Intel back on track. The fact Intel is outsourcing to TSMC until they can get build there own fabs that are capable is a sign of this.

Using TSMC is Short term, not Long term move...