Intel says scale and execution are its main gaps to TSMC

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 55:15

   What is the basically then the concrete master plan to catch up to TSMC? Even though TSMC is ahead, there's so much overflow demand at their leading edge, where N3 is now majority AI accelerators, maybe majority NVIDIA alone, that all this demand for CPUs, for other things, which are also, by the need it for AI. Yes. There's humongous influx and demand for CPUs because of AI. How do you see this opportunity right now where Intel's a few years before while TSMC is just way over-saturated?

2. 55:43

   Catching up to TSMC maybe has multiple facets. I would say the catch-up that we need to do is in scale. Like you said, they're just a much larger wafer manufacturer today than we are. and even bigger than what Samsung is. Cashing up in scale will be a slow process, a gradual process. If you meant, you know, catch up in terms of just the technology, I think that, you know, I think we're already there.

3. 56:18

   Like, you know, we might maybe, you know, a few percent off on performance or power or area density. but you know in this this sort of benchmarking of you know somewhat one foundries ahead or one foundries behind it makes sense when you're like a whole generation behind or two generations behind or ahead that's when it makes a meaningful difference in your die output or your you know die area or functionality like power. But if you're within like a few percent, it's really you're splitting hairs at that point in time because it's not very unidimensional at this point. It's not just about density. It's not just about raw performance. Different applications require different vectors. So, you know, you can be off by a few percent, but you need to be on time. Your execution needs to be such that your yields are very high to support very large and

4. 57:24

   very rapid ramps. So that actually is more important than catching up on a few percent in performance or area. I was looking at some semi-analysis numbers that seem to suggest that in terms of transistor density, 14A will actually be, which will come out in like 2028, would it be comparable to N2? Yeah. First of all, I would dispute your benchmarking. But like I said, I think, you know, it's important to be generally in the right ballpark, be very predictable, and also, you know, it's not unidimensional in terms of, you know, we don't build one type of transistor, let's say 14A or 18A. You build a few different types of transistors. Let's say there's a low leakage transistor, there's a high performance, you know, high drive current transistor, you're building SRAMs, there's a high density SRAM,

5. 58:16

   There's a high-performance SRAM. There's many other functionalities, like, you know, some analog circuits, RF circuits. So it's the sum of all of those that makes the technology competitive. I guess that makes the CapEx you do right now even more important. So right now, or like TSMC is on track to do 50 billion in CapEx, around 50 billion in CapEx this year. You're on track to do around 20 billion.

6. 58:39

   Yes. But if the tools you're buying right now will determine who can service all this crazy AI demand that's coming up, It makes the CapEx right now, the difference in CapEx even more important for like U.S. versus other countries. Yes, very much. It's a little bit of an unfair comparison between us and TSMC today, just because today they're a foundry for basically everybody. And we're largely a foundry for Intel. We'll become a foundry for others. So in due course, our CapEx will also grow.