Intel could match TSMC for chip transistor density later this year
Intel's struggles with its chip production technology are well documented. Its 10nm node was at least five years late and has since been rejigged and rebranded «Intel 7». But according to Wikichip Fuse, Intel might be back right at the cutting edge later this year with its upcoming Intel 4 node.
Intel's main competitor when it comes to banging out the world's most advanced silicon is of course TSMC. Comparing process technologies across fabs is notoriously difficult. But pretty much everyone agrees that TSMC's N5 node crams in more transistors per unit of chip area than Intel 7.
However, going by information put out by both Intel and TSMC, Wikichip Fuse reckons that it will be very much a dead heat when devices with chips made on Intel and TSMC's next-gen nodes arrive later this year.
TSMC has had its own woes bringing its N3 process tech to market. In fact, such have been TSMC's struggles, the company has ended up creating two entirely separate N3 nodes, known as N3B and N3E.
N3B is the original «3nm» node created in partnership with Apple and likely to be seen in chips used by the new iPhone 15 later this year and perhaps a new M3 processor for Apple Macs, too.
N3E, meanwhile, is the simpler, easier-to-design-for node that pretty much all other customers will use. So, if AMD or Nvidia make N3 GPUs at TSMC, they'll be on the N3E node.
All of that is really just to underline how complicated this all is. It's not even straight forward to characterise what «N3» means at TSMC let alone compare TSMC nodes to Intel nodes.
What's more, even within a single chip on a given node, there are variations. For instance, SRAM memory cell density on TSMC's new N3 nodes are said to have stalled, offering no improvement over N5. That's
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