TSMC feels no downturn in the market - November revenue soared 50.2 percent

TSMC management was optimistic this week about its prospects for contract manufacturing of semiconductor components for US customers, as its budget for building two facilities in Arizona reached $40 billion and its design capacity was tripled.
On a global scale the company also feels good because its November revenue grew by 50.2% compared to the previous year.Image source: TSMCIn accordance with the statistics published by TSMC in November the company made about $7.3 billion in current exchange rates, and this corresponds to the sequential growth of 5.9%, and in annual terms the revenue jumped by 50.2%.
We can not hesitate to call this year a period of significant growth for TSMC, because from January to November the company's revenue grew by 44.6% to $67.6 billion.
For not the easiest year in terms of geopolitics the dynamics is very decent.Let us not forget, however, that not everything is cloudy in TSMC activities.
The amount of capital spending for the current year, it still had to reduce from $40 to $36 billion.
At the last quarterly event the company representatives also complained about the decline in demand for products used in the PC and smartphone segments, some of which are produced on an advanced 7-nm process.
By the middle of next year, the company expects to regain the utilization rate of the respective production lines.
The company also has to postpone the modernization of its facilities due to delays in the supply of lithographic equipment.

Intel hasn't changed its mind about building plants in Ohio and Germany despite the downturn in the industry - but it may cut its project budget

This week the pages of the Intel corporate blog featured a post by Keyvan Esfarjani, executive vice president in charge of manufacturing operations for the corporation around the world.
He tried to reassure investors that deteriorating macroeconomic conditions would not force Intel to abandon its plans to build new facilities in the U.S.
and Europe, although he acknowledged that funding for these projects should be carried out in proportion to projected demand.Source image: IntelThe main idea of the message of the Intel representative was that the company should already prepare for the future growth in demand for semiconductor products.
It takes three to five years to build a plant and equip it with the necessary equipment, and the company simply cannot afford to ignore future market demands.
Intel's management shares the experts' optimism, predicting an average semiconductor market turnover growth rate of 5 percent a year by the end of the decade.
By the end of the forecast period, the market capacity should double to $1 trillion, so the company considers it necessary to invest in the construction of new enterprises, even now, when the current situation is not favorable to it.The second important idea, which broadcasts the executive vice president of Intel - the need for geographical diversification of chip production.
With 80% of capacity concentrated in one tiny region (meaning Taiwan), semiconductor manufacturing is very vulnerable, according to Intel.
Reportedly, this week the company acquired ownership of a piece of land in Magdeburg where a chip packaging and testing facility will be built, and eventually a second one will appear.
The company has also signed a contract with Bechtel, a construction contractor that will start building new Intel facilities in Ohio.
Here, the corporation expects to master mass production of chips using Intel 18A technology by 2025, with the U.S.
Defense Department mentioned among the first customers.
At the first stage, Intel expects to invest at least $20 billion at this site.
A management representative made it clear that the company will work closely with German and Ohio state authorities to determine when and how much funding is needed for the relevant projects.
Intel in this regard is going to be guided by the needs of the market and plan its major expenditures wisely.

TSMC denied rumors: it has not yet chosen a location for the 1-nm fab

The day before the Taiwanese media reported that TSMC, the largest contract manufacturer of semiconductor components in the world, had already decided on the location for its most advanced facility, which will master the 1N technology production in a few years.
As explained by TSMC representatives, no decisions have been made yet.Image source: TSMC According to Focus Taiwan, the original publication of the Commercial Times, citing an anonymous source, mentioned the intention of TSMC to place the new venture in the technology park Xinzhu in northwestern Taiwan.
According to official reports, TSMC is undecided on the site and is still in the process of finding a suitable location on the island.
As soon as the choice is made, the company promises to make the appropriate announcement.Deputy director of the technology park Xinzhu not commented on rumors about the plans of TSMC, but explained that the resident companies can choose the site in the third area of the park for the construction of production facilities, because the first place is all taken, and the second reserved for recreational areas.It is expected that the company will begin mass production of 3-nm products in the current quarter, and next year revenue from their sales will be as follows Mass production of 2-nm products TSMC will begin in 2025.
The company's management did not speak about terms of mastering more advanced lithography at the last quarterly report conference, but in May there was already information about TSMC's readiness to start development of 1.4nm process.

Intel 20A process will be used primarily for its own needs

Describing the current state of adoption of new process technologies, Intel management avoided making any new ambitious statements at its quarterly report conference, merely mentioning that it continues to believe in its ability to regain technological leadership by 2025.
It was also said that Intel 18A process will be more suitable for the needs of third-party customers, while the previous Intel 20A process will be mainly used by the company itself.Image source: IntelIn the next few years Intel will have to reduce costs by $8-10 billion a year, CFO David Zinsner was forced to clarify that the amount of investment in product development and adoption of new technologies will be affected to a minimum.
In fact, over the next couple of years, the share of capital costs will reach 35% of revenues, before dropping to the more familiar 25%.The Intel 20A technology will use a new RibbonFET transistor structure, and in this regard, the company expects to maintain its status as an innovator in the semiconductor industry, as CEO Patrick Gelsinger made clear.
The Intel 20A process is on track to be adopted, and the company's CEO believes it will be used primarily for its own needs.
After transitioning to Intel 18A by the middle of the decade, the number of third-party customers interested in using this new lithography step will significantly increase.As Gelsinger stressed, a digital project on the Intel 18A process for a large external customer has already been completed, and the first workable prototypes are available.
According to early statements from Intel, it is a product for the needs of the U.S.
Department of Defense, which will be produced at the under-construction facility in Ohio.
In addition, the company already has test samples for its own needs, manufactured using Intel 18A technology.
In the future, several more Intel customers will receive test chips produced using this process.
According to Gelsinger, based on the results of tests of these samples, they will be able to decide on the advisability of mass production by Intel.

Intel has returned to profitability despite falling revenue

Intel Corp.'s third-quarter revenue fell 15% to $15.3 billion, in full compliance with its management's projections.
By the middle of the decade, Intel hopes to cut annual expenses by $8-10 billion, with savings reaching $3 billion as early as next year.According to the head of the company, staff cuts will not be a significant factor in savings, although they will start already in the current quarter.Image source: Intel Net income at Intel in the past quarter fell by 59% from $5.9 to $2.4 billion using Non-GAAP method and operating profit margin fell from 31.8 to 10.8 %.
Profit margin fell from 58.3% to 45.9% year over year.
At the same time, the company managed to increase spending on research and development by 12% to $5.4 billion.
Intel was forced to end the quarter with operating losses, but due to the tax refunds it showed a net profit.
The period ended with an operating loss of $175 million, but a net profit of $1.02 billion.In the client computing area, which is most dependent on PC market conditions, Intel's revenues fell 17% year over year to $8.1 billion, but grew sequentially by 6% due to an increase in average selling price.
Intel expects PC sales to dip 15 to 19 percent this year, primarily in the consumer and education sectors, as well as inventory adjustments in the OEM segment, but year-over-year sales should remain above pre-pandemic levels for the foreseeable future.
At the end of next year, PC sales should either remain at current levels or decline slightly.
According to the Intel representatives, from 270 to 295 million computers will be sold next year.
The head of the corporation even said that Intel was able to significantly strengthen its position in the PC segment in the third quarter.Image source: IntelIn the server segment last quarter, revenue at Intel dropped by an impressive 27% to $4.2 billion, but in the reporting documents the company proudly announced that it had started production of those models of processors Sapphire Rapids family, which were aimed at mass consumption, and also expects to slightly increase its market share in this segment by the end of the year.
In the past quarter, Intel's server revenue was undermined by weak demand in the Chinese corporate sector.Image source: IntelThe immediate issue of the upcoming staff reductions at the quarterly event Intel management spoke reluctantly, only noting its inevitability.
Intel's freelancers and contractors will be the first to suffer, they will feel Intel's desire to save money as early as this quarter.
Marketing and advertising costs will be cut.
Quantitative figures for staff reductions are not specified, but CFO Davis Zinsner let it slip that they will be significant.
CEO Patrick Gelsinger added that production costs would be prioritized over payroll in the search for cost savings.
By early October, the company had 131,500 employees.According to Intel's management, the company is on track to implement a plan to master five new process technologies in four years.
There were no delays in learning Intel 4 and Intel 3 technologies, the first prototypes of chips made with the Intel 20A and Intel 18A technologies were already running in the company's labs, and this also applies to products for a large third-party customer - at least the digital design of the respective product is ready and the first working samples exist.
In the customer segment, the company is going to introduce Meteor Lake processors (Intel 4) next year, at the same time Emerald Rapids servers will appear.
On schedule, the company is preparing to launch server processors in 2024.
The Meteor Lake series stepping design should be completed this quarter, and Intel's server segment managed to get the first Intel 3 Granite Rapids processor components last quarter, systems based on their samples are already working in Intel labs.
For the first time, the company will use ultra-hard ultraviolet (EUV) lithography as part of its Intel 4 and Intel 3 processors.
This will endow the respective products with breakthrough performance in terms of performance per watt of power consumption and density, according to Intel.Image source: IntelSome of Intel's business areas showed positive revenue growth in the third quarter.
Among them were networking and edge computing solutions, which grew revenue 14% to $2.3 billion and kept operating income at $75 million, despite an 85% decline from the same period last year.

The U.S.military will be the first to receive advanced 18A chips

As it began building new facilities in Ohio, Intel made no secret that it would use them to serve outside customers in advanced 18A (18 angstroms - 18 tenths of a nanometer) technology, and some of the first customers connected with the U.S.
defense sector will receive their orders.
The company also plans to package and test the products in Arizona for those customers.Over the summer, the U.S.
Defense Department complained that up to 98 percent of the microelectronics products it needs are manufactured or tested in Asia.
Intel will try to solve this problem by creating a line at existing facilities in Arizona to test and package semiconductor components for the U.S.
Defense Department in the foreseeable future.
The Defense Department buys $3 billion worth of chips each year, Intel Foundry Service (IFS) President Randhir Thakur told EE Times.
The company has already signed a $250 million contract with the Defense Department to design advanced semiconductor components with Intel.Image source: EE Times, Alan PattersonIntel intends to use the department's SHIP ecosystem, which allows for the integration of disparate computing components in one package.
The U.S.
Defense Department will be the first Intel customer to receive semiconductor chips made with 18A technology from the company in the second half of 2024.
They will already be using a gate-around transistor (GAA) structure.IFS customers already include MediaTek, Amazon and Cisco, bringing in about $800 million in revenue in the first year of Intel's contract business.
This is not so much against the background of $56.9 billion received by TSMC last year, but Intel is at the very beginning of this journey.
Notably, for large customers like MediaTek, Intel is going to provide \"untouchable quotas\" that guarantee stable output for the customer even when demand is high.The purchase of Israel-based Tower Semiconductor will add to the IFS ecosystem with a network of facilities located in Israel, Europe, the United States and Japan, which last year together generated about $1.5 billion.
These facilities use 500 to 65 nm processors, and especially valuable contributions to Intel business will come from these assets on the automotive and meth In the case of Intel's 18A technology, the toolkit has reached version 0.5, indicating that the research phase has passed, although the development of the process is still in full swing.
According to Intel, the 18A process is comparable to the well-known 2nm process.To become a U.S.
defense contractor, Intel must go through a complicated and lengthy process of security certification, but if it has such a certificate, it will automatically increase other customers' confidence in it.
One of the confidence-building steps will be the establishment of a chip packaging and testing line in Arizona, since such operations with Intel products are currently carried out either in Malaysia, or in China or Vietnam.
Intel now uses six different chip packaging companies, distributing orders to 18 companies.

Intel showed silicon wafers with mysterious 34-core Raptor Lake processors, but didn't say what they're for

At the Innovation 2022 event, Intel showed a silicon wafer on its booth that reveals 34-core Raptor Lake-S processors not officially introduced.
As Paul Alcorn (Paul Alcorn) from Tom's Hardware writes, the company did not do it on purpose, because before that it has announced a consumer series of processors Raptor Lake, which have no more than 24 cores.Image source: Tom's HardwareJournalist points out that before that there were rumors that Intel is working on some 34-core processors.
However, it turned out later that they were just MCC chipsets for Sapphire Rapids server processors.
But the chips showed yesterday belong to the consumer Raptor Lake-S series.
This is evidenced by the sticker available on the wafer, as shown in the photo below.
The plate with the 34-core Raptor Lake chipsA closer look at the plate (photo above) makes it obvious that the uncut chips in it don't look like the standard Raptor Lake processor chips (photo below).
The cores in the chips are not arranged horizontally in two rows like in standard Raptor Lake crystals.
In addition, it seems that the 34 cores of the unknown Raptor Lake processors are connected by a kind of mesh structure, like in Ice Lake crystals (Xeon and 10th generation Core processors), as well as by a ring bus.
Also, as part of the 34-core Raptor Lake crystals can distinguish eight DDR5 memory controllers and UPI blocks, which is unusual for standard desktop models.Crystal already presented desktop Raptor Lake- SThe staff of the stand, where they demonstrated the silicon wafers, also confirmed that these processors Raptor Lake-S with 34 cores, but did not specify whether they are server or consumer.
The journalist notes that the size of crystals is much larger than the consumer model Raptor Lake-S for the LGA 1700 processor socket.It is very likely that Intel has shown crystals of some future powerful processors.
Perhaps these crystals are for high performance desktop (HEDT) processors Raptor Lake-X, or on such crystals will be built processors for workstations Xeon W or other models.

Intel inaugurated construction of two plants in Ohio - they will start producing advanced chips by 2025

U.S.
authorities' delay in approving a $52 billion package of legislation to subsidize the construction of semiconductor facilities in the country has delayed Intel's schedule for building two facilities in Ohio somewhat, but only on a ceremonial level.
The president of the United States, the governor of the state and the head of Intel attended the ceremony this week.Image source: IntelAccording to a press release on Intel's website, other officials of various levels attended the grand opening ceremony for the Ohio site.
While Intel's intentions to spend $20 billion to build facilities in Ohio have long been known, this week the company emphasized a related educational initiative.
As clarified, it will allocate $50 million over ten years to core educational programs in Ohio that will cover more than 80 institutions in the state.
Over the next three years alone, Intel will allocate $17.7 million to support research and educational programs, which will be distributed among eight academic institutions in Ohio.Over the next three years, this program will provide training for about 9,000 graduates, and 2,300 students will become recipients of targeted scholarships.
About 7,000 people will be employed directly in the construction of plants in Ohio, and in the long term, they will provide jobs for about 3,000 skilled professionals.
As Intel representatives once again stressed, the company's two new facilities in Ohio will focus not only on manufacturing products for its own needs, but will also serve the interests of third-party customers.
Earlier it was explained, that it will be in Ohio, where advanced lithographic scanners ASML with high value of numerical aperture, which in the future will allow to produce products with Intel 18A technology.
It will allow Intel to regain technological leadership in lithography by the middle of the decade.
In addition to its own products, Intel is already considering making advanced products in Ohio for several customers.
Most likely, the talk is about representatives of defense industry interested in getting American-made products that meet the latest criteria.Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger thanked representatives from the U.S.
Presidential Administration, Congress and state leadership for their assistance in the company's effort to \"restore the deserved U.S.
position as a leader in the advanced chip manufacturing\".
In the coming years, Intel will build two new facilities in Arizona, expand its production capacity in New Mexico, and improve its research center in Oregon, which will focus on developing advanced packaging techniques for semiconductor components and innovations in lithography.
It will house an experimental production line that will allow advanced engineering ideas to be tested at prototype level.