According to Bob Swan Intel 7nm is equivalent to TSMC 5nm. He also said that Intel 5nm will be equivalent to TSMC’s 3nm.

Bob also talked about Intel’s transitions from 22nm to 14nm to 10nm in very simple terms. 22nm to 14nm had a 2.4x density target which as we now know was a very difficult transition. From 14nm to 10nm Intel targeted a 2.7x density target which led to even more manufacturing challenges. Intel 7nm with EUV will be back to a 2.0x scaling target.

It is just one little tiny problem, Intel do not have even normally working 10nm.

We say [Moore's Law] is slowing because the frequency scaling opportunity at every node is either a very small percentage or nil going forward; it depends on the node when you look at the foundries. So there's limited opportunity, and that's where how you put the solution together matters more than ever.

We've made no announcements on SMT4 at this time. In general, you have to look at simultaneous multi-threading (SMT): There are applications that can benefit from it, and there are applications that can't. Just look at the PC space today, many people actually don’t enable SMT, many people do. SMT4, clearly there are some workloads that benefit from it, but there are many others that it wouldn’t even be deployed. It's been around in the industry for a while, so it's not a new technology concept at all. It's been deployed in servers; certain server vendors have had this for some time, really it's just a matter of when certain workloads can take advantage of it.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-cto-mark-papermaster-more-cores-coming-in-the-era-of-a-slowed-moores-law

It is lot of bad news ahead. As cores increase and SMT doubling are the last general methods industry had for now.

In next years we can see extreme distance between notebooks and smaller computers and powerful desktops.

As with present Threadripper you already need around 400W cooling capability (to max our performance) and another 300-600W for top GPUs. This numbers will double in 2-3 years.

So, look for a case that allows to mount pair of 420 water blocks or may be more.

The Tiger Lake CPU family is anticipated to hit the market sometime within the 2020 - 2021 timeframe, though I would take this with a grain of salt as the10nm process still has a way to go before full-scale production. Tiger Lake is set to be the successor to Intel's first-generation 10nm Ice Lake and will take shape as the optimization step within Intel's Process-Architecture-Optimization model as the third-generation 10nm variant built by Intel (10nm++).

It is nice fairy tales, but for now even 10nm can be used for slowest and simplest mobile chips only.

From interview with UMC, one of the players who dropped from the race

UMC, once a major rival to TSMC in pursuing advanced manufacturing nodes, decided about two years ago to shift its focus away from joining the race to 10nm and more advanced process technologies. UMC disclosed previously plans to enhance its 14nm and 12nm process offerings but to suspend sub-12nm process R&D.

UMC encountered some bottlenecks in the 0.13-micron process race. It was a vicious circle in which we lost market share in the advanced node market segment and saw impacts on our revenues, coupled with a decline in our available R&D capital. Such experience pushed UMC to rethink its strategy to avoid being trapped again in a rat race.

In 2017, UMC recognized its role could make a difference. Rather than fighting to be a technology leader in the advanced-node process segment, UMC can be more capable of being a leader in the more mature process segments.

There is a massive layoff and reorganization coming to a silicon valley chip company in the near future. SemiAccurate has heard the plans from multiple sources, enough to say with confidence that this is a big one, and several senior people are already sending out resume’s.

https://semiaccurate.com/2019/11/20/large-layoffs-and-reorg-to-hit-silicon-valley-soon/

Usually this guy is spot on.

Complex Intel chip plans.

It is just one issue - such complex mounting of one chip above another is very fragile, can have issues even due fast temperature changes. End for notebooks it is even worse as any significant drop can mean motherboard replacement (another thing can be that such chips can be very hard to mount or replace!).

AMD still do not want to make public bad situation with 7nm yields and total processors availability.

TSMC now can't provide enough good 7nm plates. main priority goes to leading mobile LSIs as most profitable, later goes AMD chipsets for EPYC. All else is produced only if they have capacity.

TSMC is expected to step up the construction of its advanced 3nm wafer fab after securing 30 hectares of land in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) by the end of 2019, according to industry sources.

PR is everything :-)

Huawei's HiSilicon has unseated Apple as the largest customer of TSMC in terms of advanced process node capacity share, according to industry sources.

Competition of doomed runners :-)

Compal on situation with Intel

Fast improvements (due to cores number) seems to be up.

AMD now want to move into marketing strategy and tick-tock approach. With each second model being extremely small improvements. Yes, 3-5% a year with 10-25% price rise each time.

TSMC and EUV

On Oct. 7, the world’s largest foundry announced that its 7nm plus (N7+) node has become the industry’s first commercially available (extreme ultra-violet) EUV technology. TSMC said in a press statement that it has been quickly deploying capacity to meet N7+ demand driven by multiple customers

The leading edge is currently at 7+ with about three layers done using EUV, he says. In 2020, TSMC will ramp 5nm in the second half with significantly increased EUV usage of about 15 layers, followed by 6nm ramping at the end of 2020 with about four layers done in EUV

Huawei will lead at 5nm followed by Apple, both seeking to take advantage of die-size benefits plus normal power and speed improvements, he says. In the meantime, MediaTek is likely to be TSMC’s leading customer at the 6nm node due to persistent limited wafer availability on 7nm.

EUV provides a roughly 20 percent reduction in mask levels, which in turn cuts production cycle time, according to Samsung. Chip designers who take advantage of EUV processes can avoid the triple- and quadruple-patterning techniques that fabs have struggled with while using 193nm immersion lithography.

Samsung introduced EUV with their 7LPP node late last year, with production used internally for Samsung’s application processors and possibly Qualcomm, but not in high volume. Samsung has plans for 6nm EUV next year and 5nm EUV in development with likely volume in 2021.

TSMC, Samsung and Intel — are planning to adopt EUV in their production roadmaps.

Originally, Intel’s 7nm generation was slated for introduction in 2017, but delays in 14nm and 10nm delayed the company's planned launch of 7nm MPUs to 2021. In May 2019, Intel executives claimed the company's 7nm technology would challenge the performance of 5nm processes planned by TSMC

Things are really bad now.

We have TSMC as leader that can only do 3 layers and very limited batches and almost all volume will go to AMD during next year. I think we must expect multiple issues as we had this year, hidden behind closed doors for a while. Most probably AMD will be forced to move 7+ consumer processors introduction to late 2020 or even 2021. Focusing on EPYC chips with huge margins for now.

Samsung is also very bleak. They can do lot of nice NAND and DRAM, but at processors they like to lie. Next year we can see various fake declarations.

Intel just do not know that to do. Their only hope is completely non ready 7nm process, and they want to repeat all 10nm errors. Now it is loud declarations about 2021 that will become 2022 and most probably 2023-2024 for first consumer chips.

Intel will be definitely supported at all costs via special bank loans and direct injections and similar things. As it is very risky to have only leader located in Taiwan, as you can totally lost access to it within few days if China will decide to invade Taiwan 9and this is quite probable within next 5 years).

TSMC

TSMC has advised its clients to book foundry capacity well in advance for their 7nm chip demand for the entire 2020, according to industry sources.

7nm issues continue. Now TSMC owners artificially hold 7nm production as they are happy with profits and have no idea how to fix low yields.

TSMC is expected to see its revenues in the second half of 2019 jump 32% from the first half - more than three times the 10% growth rate expected for the entire IC industry during the same period, IC Insights said. "There is little doubt that 7nm application processors for new smartphones from Apple and Huawei are driving the forecast for a strong second-half rebound in TSMC's sales".

Yes, TSMC and Apple with AMD are ripping you big part with 7nm.

TSMCis expected to have over 7x the dollar volume sales at sub-40nm processes as compared to the combined 2019 total of Globalfoundries, UMC, and SMIC (US$22.9 billion versus US$3.2 billion)

Here we have actual monopoly.

It took eight quarters for the foundry's 40-45nm technology to secure greater than 20% of its total sales, five quarters for its 28nm process to exceed that threshold, and only three quarters for its 7nm process to account for more than 20% of its quarterly revenue.

And it is growing fast.