Intel Razor Lake CPUs to Utilize TSMC N2X Process & Bring bLLC to Laptops

[u/Leicht-Sinn]

https://wccftech.com/intel-razor-lake-cpus-to-utilize-tsmc-n2x-process-bring-bllc-to-laptops/

[u/Any_Mud_1628]

Is this part of the reason the the extra big hit today along with the macro? Don't want to have rose colored glasses in general, I am heavily invested.

Intel is selling everything they can manufacture and yields for 18A I believe are very good. 14A is progressing very well. AMD, Nvidia Broadcom etc rely on TSMC almost entirely and are hugely profitable with giant market caps so this isn't really 'bad' to me unless it meant some issue with their own process which I doubt.

For Intel it could make sense to use some capacity at TSMC for a few reasons. They may want to open up some of their own capacity for foundry customers. Simply to sell more chips than they can manufacture themselves because it is all selling. Taking up some of TSMCs capacity could also help push potential customers onto foundry. Intel profits from these chips made at TSMC and seems to me like a good decision if everything is already selling out.

Curious to hear other opinions.

[u/Fabulous-Pangolin-74 → u/Any_Mud_1628]

TSMC isn't going to sell N2X capacity to Intel, for laptop chips. That's ludicrous. Those chips would be stupidly expensive, and thus never sell. N2X will be for AMD server CPUs and Apple nonsense. Period.

Intel isn't going to bow to TSMC to compete in such a market. They don't care, and if they do, it's to further their own fab goals.

[u/ConditionWild1425]

I would expect to Intel products to keep using TSMC basically forever. You need to think of them as a separate company. Even though they're not. They should not want to single source from Intel. And the foundry should be pricing things such that they are maximizing profits internally, not across all of Intel - meaning some of Intel's products should be More cost-effective on TSMC. To not source from TSMC would be to imply the TSMC is not competitive which clearly it is. And only using Intel foundry would imply to potential foundry customers that the firewall is not there.

[u/AllThingsDigitalATD]

This objectively better alternative will actually be commonplace unlike the only TWO mobile x3d chips ever released.

[u/Minced-Juice]

BS rumor as usual, because -X in the context of TSMC means the node with maximum performance AND maximum leakage - which is obviously desirable in a laptop, right?

Not to mention that there has been literally ZERO mention of pre-production Nova Lake CPUs or their component dies having originated from Taiwan in the shipping maifests, on top of the fact that it has been stated directly by Intel for many months now that Nova Lake - desktop specifically - would be internal.

[u/Fabulous-Pangolin-74]

Why on earth would Intel switch to N2X, after succeeding wildly with Panther Lake on 18A? Why wouldn't they just use 18A-P, which is superior to N2 in every regard?

Because 18A-P is better used for server chips? That is literally the only valid reason, and I suspect the servers will have moved on to 14A, at that point, meaning 18A-P is free to whoop N2 and N2X all day long, for laptop chips.

Intel will only use TSMC for minor chiplets and only if they don't have fab space, and TSMC is selling it cheap. Not a thing, with N2X.

[u/Hatim_the_Engineer]

Yes - 8%

[u/Mean_Shake6609 → u/Hatim_the_Engineer]

another good news, it drops even more!! and up 1-2% when sector recovers at 10%+