qcmadness

https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180910PD210.html

引用:

Intel is encountering tight 14nm process production capacity in-house, and is looking to outsource part of its 14nm chip production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), according to industry sources.

Intel intends to give priority to its high-margin products mainly server-use processors and chipsets amid its tight 14nm process capacity, and therefore plans to outsource the production of its entry-level H310 and several other 300 series desktop processors to TSMC, the sources indicated.

Intel has seen its overall 14nm chip supply fall short of demand by as much as 50%, the sources said. Outsourcing has become the only and appropriate choice for Intel since the company is unlikely to build additional 14nm process capacity, the sources noted.

TSMC is already a contract manufacturer of Intel for SoFIA-series handset SoC chips and FPGA products, and makes Intel's baseband chips for use in the iPhone, the sources said.

Motherboard makers expect the tight supply of Intel's 14nm chipsets to ease by the end of 2018.

Market observers believe that Intel's tight capacity for 14nm stems from its delay in advancing to 10nm. Intel originally planned to enter mass production of its 10nm Cannon Lake processors in 2016, but has been pushing back the schedule.

Intel's latest update is that its 10nm chips will not be ready for commercial production until the fourth quarter of 2019.

Intel had been adopting the so-called "Tick-Tock" model under which every microarchitecture change is followed with a die shrink of the process technology, but the "Tick-Tock" production cycle started slowing down in 2014. Intel's 14nm manufacturing node has become the "longest-lived" process technology in the chip giant's history, the observers noted.

Intel has declined to comment on the reported move to outsource 14nm chips to TSMC.