New movement in two of the large semiconductor companies, where apparently it has been Intel through its CEO Pat Gelsinger who has secretly traveled to Seoul to meet with senior managers of Samsung. The objective is not clear, but all the alarms have been raised, since TSMC has two large clients such as NVIDIA and AMD, so an agreement between two of the three largest chip manufacturers in the world can blow everything up. Open war between Intel and Samsung vs TSMC, NVIDIA and AMD?
Intel has gone from being tight-lipped with Bob Swan to shamelessly seeking the highest bidder with TSMC and now Samsung. It must be remembered that the blues are clients of the Taiwanese for certain products, so a trip like this may not sit well in Taiwan and logically puts NVIDIA and AMD in equal parts, since the former ran from Samsung and the second does not even want to hear about it.
In Korea they take it for granted: Intel and Samsung collaborating together?
If you can not beat them, join them. That seems to be the emblem that Pat Gelsinger wears as a flag and according to the results it seems that he is getting it right. The company’s IDM 2.0 strategy not only opens the doors to any company for Intel nodes and technologies, but in a surprising move involves making use of others for their benefit.
Samsung’s revenues in general have surpassed Intel’s for the first time and this together with the fact that the Koreans have bet everything on the color of the GAA MBCFET transistors seems to have managed to attract the attention of Intel, the latter knowing that your future supplier needs fresh money after the investment.
But, what have been the agreements after the conversations between these two companies?
The most absolute secrecy and speculation
No note or rumor of the negotiations at the highest level in the Korean capital has transpired, so we are going to launch unfounded speculation based on what we do know. Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake seem to have a word with TSMC on the company’s N3 node, processors that will arrive in 2023 and 2024 with the base of Intel 4 and Intel 20A under their belt, but (because there always is) Lunar Lake and the following are specified as Intel 18A and an external node not yet defined by the company.
Samsung would come in here and possibly not with its 3nm GAA , but with the 2nm with said transistors. But it is that we have to go further, because although Intel and its ARC graphics arrive with TSMC’s 6nm, it is possible that given the production capacity available from Samsung and the possible good prices that it can make to Intel by volume, those of Pat Gelsinger take a radical turn and opt for the best node available from the Koreans for Battlemage or perhaps the next generations.
This way they could compete with NVIDIA and AMD with much more interesting and advanced weapons, since TSMC will not reach GAA until 2nm and that is at least two more years from 2022.
In short, Intel is not being short-sighted with Samsung, for that it has its Intel 7 and Intel 4, and the 6nm from the Taiwanese, Pat Gelsinger is looking at the long term where costs will be key and Samsung seems to have the upper hand there arrive first and after the flight of its main customers since it may be forced to improve prices in exchange for stability and volume by Intel’s demand for chips. It is, without a doubt, the beginning of a technological war where the best positioned is undoubtedly the blue company, since it not only depends on itself, but also reinforces itself with its two main competitors.
