
Intel Video Shows How It Makes a 10nm Processor - rbanffy
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-video-shows-how-it-makes-a-10nm-processor
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ebg13
30 seconds about etching a transistor. 4 minutes of "we're great" fluff. Most
of the process just skipped. Nothing really explained.

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taspeotis
Most of it is lost on me but there is a lot of detail in this video
[https://youtu.be/NGFhc8R_uO4](https://youtu.be/NGFhc8R_uO4)

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olliej
I found this to be basically an ad.

My favourite video on them is this one from many years ago, it’s a
presentation by an engineer not being paid by a fab:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4&t=3261s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4&t=3261s)

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Ballu
10yr old, same topic

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5paWn7bFg4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5paWn7bFg4)

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2muchcoffeeman
Why is TSMC so far ahead?

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chx
TSMC was moving at a half node speed financed by the smartphone boom.
Currently they offer 5nm, 6nm, 7nm, 10nm, 12nm, 16nm, 20nm, 22nm, 28nm and
larger lithography. There was and still is ample competition, Samsung not the
least.

Intel tried to be aggressive in moving ahead with full nodes and has grown
complacent because it had no competition on the CPU market. When their
aggressive bet didn't work out they were caught pants down.

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rowanG077
What do nodes and half nodes mean in your comment?

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chx
[https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node)

tl;dr: Mostly marketing term today. Nonetheless, the changes TSMC made are
much more incremental, for example the 12nm is more of a variant of the 16nm
than a full new node. Once again, this is very very expensive because the cost
to equip a modern fab passed a billion dollars long ago and now runs into tens
of billions. Mostly Apple is the reason TSMC could do this without going
bankrupt. Also note a process node makes money for a long, long while even
when the cutting edge companies have left:
[https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13873/TSMC%20Tech.png](https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13873/TSMC%20Tech.png)
half of the revenue is from 28nm and larger -- 28nm (which is another half
node) was introduced Q4 2011. So it's possible without Apple they could've
done it but it would've required a much bigger debt load.

