The Hot Take: Feeling the heat from Intel? USA companies perfected this manufacturing before you, can't take the heat get out of the kitchen!
The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) next-generation 1.4-nanometer production could kick off in April, suggests a new report in the Taiwanese press. TSMC's 1.4-nanometer process technology, also called the 14A manufacturing node, will succeed the firm's 2-nanometer technology. According to the details, TSMC's 1.4-nanometer facility in Taichung could enter trial production in April 2027, with mass production expected in the second half of the year. TSMC Submits Application To Build Two Temporary Offices At Taichung…
The fates appear to have turned benevolent towards Intel, especially as its multi-year strategic pivots are now finally on the cusp of paying financial dividends, as evidenced by the chipmaker's rapidly expanding EMIB-T capacity as well as its hefty lead against Samsung and TSMC on high-NA EUV technology. UBS now believes Intel can easily meet MediaTek's growing TPU-related demand for EMIB-T advanced packaging, replete with the ability to package over 2 million substrates by 2028 According to UBS, the wider industry is becoming increasingly…
The Hot Take: Intel is making headway fast to get back to the top of the manufacturers for sure.
Intel announced on Monday that it had processed more than one million 300-mm wafers using its High-NA EUV scanners, less than two and a half years after its first tool was assembled. For now, the company intends to use industry-standard 6-inch photomasks, which can expose 26×16.5 mm half-fields and therefore require field stitching for larger chips. However, Intel is also working on larger 6×12-inch photomasks that would enable High-NA EUV scanners to expose full 26×33 mm fields without stitching.One million High-NA wafersIntel's one million…
The Hot Take: Very good news, ratchet up that heat in competition for TSMC & Samsung.
Intel is a bundle of positive tailwinds these days, especially in relation to its next-gen 14A chip fabrication process, as evidenced by an increasing likelihood of a firming order book for the process, and a defect density curve that is running ahead of the comparable trajectory for the current-gen 18A node. If Intel's 14A process simply follows the defect density curve trajectory of the current-gen 18A process from here onward, the chipmaker's next-gen process will likely be ready for its commercial debut by Q2 2028 For the benefit of those…
The Hot Take: Good, needed more than just for their own products but defense too.
Intel's confidence in its 14A (1.4nm-class) fabrication process is rising as defect density drops. The company's own design teams are at work developing products that will use the technology, while external customers are now asking about 14A volumes Intel can get them, according to David Zinsner, chief financial officer of Intel, who spoke at Deustche Bank's 2026 Technology Conference. The CFO went as far as saying that 14A is Intel's best process since 22nm technology from the 2010's. But while the comment is optimistic, there is a…
The Hot Take: Long enough to finish OH I'm sure of. As long as it doesn't get in the way of defense manufacturing of course.
The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell-on-earth yarn claiming that Intel’s next two CPU generations could make life nastier for AMD by hogging more of TSMC’s tight 2nm capacity.
According to Jukan, Chipzilla is reportedly planning to use TSMC for parts of its Nova Lake and Razor Lake processor families. That will not cheer AMD, which already has to fight for space inside TSMC’s increasingly rammed fabs.
Intel is expected to start mass production of Nova Lake around January 2027. The chips were once expected to rely on…
The Hot Take: Filling capacity across the globe it appears. GOOD.
Intel is a hive of activity these days, so much so that it's now apparently rushing to fill its heretofore empty clean rooms while aggressively expanding capacity even in a location with relatively lower subsidies/tax credits and a much higher quantum of embedded geopolitical risk - Fab 38 in Israel. Hoffman Construction has updated its Fab 38 page to disclose 2026 as the wrap-up year of its contractual obligations, while a new Intel job vacancy for the Kiryat-Gat Site Master Planner has also opened up Back in July 2025, Intel had paused the…
The Hot Take: Um, so memory gets a law suit over 'forever chemicals' but not the other items? Doesn't that seem a bit odd?
Pushback against Micron's planned manufacturing complex in Clay, New York, which comprises four separate fabs, is once again at the center of an environmental lawsuit. Filed by Neighbors for a Better Micron and Jobs to Move America — the same groups that filed a separate lawsuit against Micron in January — filed a new complaint Friday, claiming that approved wastewater and air permits aren't valid and will allow Micron to leak "forever chemicals" into the Oneida River. Go deeper with TH Premium: Chipmaking(Image credit: tsmc)A deeper look at…
The Hot Take: AMD past manufacturing arm getting US funds? We will see if they do anything productive to the industry, as it seems they aren't since they were created in my eyes.
The US government has signed a letter of intent to provide GlobalFoundries with $300 million in CHIPS Act funding and, at the same time, receive a one percent stake in the company worth roughly $269 million. The money's supposedly not a tit-for-tat, but an investment designed to spur development of silicon photonics networking technologies that the AI industry needs for datacenters. “With today’s compute supply chain investments, the Trump Administration is accelerating America’s innovation engine,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a…
The Hot Take: Good, USA needs a strong Intel manufacturing.
Intel has overcome one big challenge that will lead to the creation of hyper-large chips beyond 12x reticle size through advanced packaging technologies. Intel Is Creating The World's Most Advanced & Largest Chips in the US at Its New Mexico "Rio Rancho" Facility, Leveraging Next-Gen Packaging Innovations Modern-day chips don't rely on a single piece of silicon, and instead utilize a range of silicon dies, interconnected together using the latest packaging solutions. The terminology used for such designs is chiplets, and chiplets were made…