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posted by martyb on Friday November 30 2018, @03:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the making-a-big-deal-out-of-small-things dept.

For more than 30 years, Intel Corp. has dominated chipmaking, producing the most important component in the bulk of the world’s computers. That run is now under threat from a company many Americans have never heard of.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. [TSMC] was created in 1987 to churn out chips for companies that lacked the money to build their own facilities. The approach was famously dismissed at the time by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. founder Jerry Sanders. "Real men have fabs,"[*] he quipped at a conference, using industry lingo for factories.

These days, ridicule has given way to envy as TSMC plants have risen to challenge Intel at the pinnacle of the $400 billion industry. AMD recently chose TSMC to make its most advanced processors, having spun off its own struggling factories years before.

[*] "fab" is shorthand for Semiconductor fabrication plant.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-28/intel-s-chipmaking-throne-is-challenged-by-a-taiwanese-upstart


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @03:36AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @03:36AM (#768133)

    Personally, I have been lied to and tricked by intel into buying subpar products and allowing weird/unnecessary telemetry (same with nvidia). That is really the only reason I am against them. They are basically evil corporate inhumane creatures.

    I assume that if TSMC and/or AMD get big enough they will become the same eventually. Is there an organization to by computational hardware from that is not like this?

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 30 2018, @04:02AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 30 2018, @04:02AM (#768143) Journal

    You're probably right. But, at this point in time, Intel is the greater evil among chip manufacturers. Unless and until they are displaced as the greater evil, I'll cheer any and all challengers to their market position.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @04:37AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @04:37AM (#768157)

    I assume that if TSMC and/or AMD get big enough they will become the same eventually. Is there an organization to by computational hardware from that is not like this?

    TSMC doesn't sell computer hardware. They sell manufacturing services, and compete with companies like GlobalFoundries and UMC.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:28AM (#768234)

    Is there an organization to by computational hardware from that is not like this?

    This is the closest you can get https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom [fsf.org]

  • (Score: 2) by mobydisk on Friday November 30 2018, @02:52PM

    by mobydisk (5472) on Friday November 30 2018, @02:52PM (#768280)

    TSMC is just a manufacturer, not a chip designer like Intel & AMD. These "TSMC > Intel" headlines are inflammatory because the companies aren't even in the same business. But a headline like "TSMC's fabrication plant is one generation ahead of Intel's" doesn't sound as compelling.