104
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
104 points (96.4% liked)
Technology
59414 readers
1002 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I'm surprised, usually that bleeding edge the foundry still sets the terms. Even if yields are lower (55% is low for that small a die), they should have the power to set the terms, or just offer a discount if they fail the contract promise, though this might be the failure clause kicking in.
Apple is the only customer after TSMC's N3B node. Everyone else wants N3E, which will not be available until next year. N3E has better yields but worse performance, while being easier/cheaper to manufacture. The increase in yields is greater than the loss in performance.
If TSMC didn't offer terms to make up for the faults of N3B, there's a very real chance that Apple would have balked and stuck with N4 again. In this case, Apple had a strong hand: without Apple, the entire N3B line would be idle and the capital expenditure to set them up would be wasted. If yields improve enough Apple might stick with N3B in the future, which would save TSMC even more money and allow them to shift back over to a better (for them) pricing model.
Apple had a comparatively strong hand for these negotiations.
Yeah I figured it was a sweetheart deal to keep the design on that process, I'm still surprised there isn't more demand, but all the volume guys (amd, nvidia, apple) are going to wait for stability, amd might do some server chips because the margins are worth it, and they can eat yields with their chiplets.
Nvidia don't give a fuck, they'll stay at n5 or even n6 for the price and efficiency, they're power gated.