TSMC's Arizona Plant Will Build Apple's 4nm Chips Starting In 2024:
The new $12 billion TSMC plant in Arizona will start to produce Apple's 4nm chips starting in 2024, with the iPhone maker being key to pushing the production forward.
But Apple and other companies wanted to be able to source 4nm parts from the United States, with TSMC relenting.
TSMC previously said it would make 20,000 wafers per month at the Arizona facility, although production may increase from those original plans, the people said. Apple will use about a third of the output as production gets underway.
Apple's most current chips are all produced on a 5nm process and the move to a new 4nm process could allow for improved performance, reduced power draw, and better thermal management. The chips will likely be used in iPhones, iPads, and Macs while Apple's future products could also make use of the technology.
Apple and other major tech companies rely on TSMC for their chipmaking needs, and the change means they'll be able to get more of their processors from the US. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has previously told employees that his company plans to source chips from the Arizona plant.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 02 2022, @04:54PM (1 child)
That's a lot sooner than I expected.
Also, this fab has morphed from "5nm" to marginally better "4nm". It could be a good budget node in the future, like "6nm" is becoming.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday December 03 2022, @06:27AM
I bet it's not gonna happen in significant quantities.
Besides, my understanding is that both S22 and Pixel 7 are on 4nm already.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Friday December 02 2022, @05:00PM
Intel is hooking up two fabs in Arizona as well. I didn't even realize that TSMC was opening one there.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Funny) by captain normal on Friday December 02 2022, @06:18PM (14 children)
Did we just lose 10 days of stories and posts?
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2022, @06:56PM (12 children)
It would appear so. When I tried to log in at 6am Eastern (1100 gmt??) there was a message that the database server was down -- signed by "NC" -- assuming our founder NCommander?
Also missing from my display are the Journals.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday December 02 2022, @07:32PM (11 children)
The recent journals can only display when there are 'recent journals' to display. As there is nothing after 21 Nov it will not show anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2022, @07:39PM (10 children)
(Score: 4, Funny) by RS3 on Friday December 02 2022, @08:57PM
It's definitely clustersomething...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday December 02 2022, @09:01PM (4 children)
But seriously, not admin here, but IIRC it's Oracle clusterware, which made sense at the time. I think they're looking at a simpler database, but I'm not sure. NC commented on some of these things, but I guess those articles and journals are now in bit heaven.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2022, @10:54AM (3 children)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=52490&cid=1280925 [soylentnews.org]
Jarinrok previously implied that MySQL had nothing to do with the data loss when I said this site was an example of why not to use MySQL.
Well if MySQL wasn't responsible then it means the wetware involved is even worse... 😉
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday December 03 2022, @04:01PM (2 children)
I'm curious, what's your direct experience with MySQL, including versions (or years for general reference)?
Other database engines?
Which would you recommend?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 04 2022, @05:53AM (1 child)
At a previous workplace we did use MySQL. It was crap - too high chance of data loss or corruption (for example they've had too many bugs where the DB sorts in a wrong order ). Sure it had lots of features you could check off on the "brochure". But in practice many features/advantages exclude the other features - you can't have them at the same time. MySQL is the PHP of databases. There's no good reason to use it other than "legacy".
For my choice- PostgreSQL. Haven't had DB caused data loss (e.g. caused by Postgresql whether directly or indirectly). Yeah it has bugs too but it's definitely not as buggy and crappy as MySQL.
Not my choice, current workplace - MS SQL. Haven't had DB caused data loss but SQL Server 2019 seems crappier and buggier than usual[1]. The earlier versions seemed solid enough in terms of the backend DB stuff. But I don't really like the dialect of SQL it uses (Transact SQL)- all those square brackets really look ugly.
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb4538581-fix-scalar-udf-inlining-issues-in-sql-server-2019-f52d3759-a8b7-a107-1ab9-7fbee264dd5d [microsoft.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday December 04 2022, @07:05AM
Wow, thank you for an awesome answer. So far I've had no problems with MySQL, but honestly the sites I'm running (for someone who owns the site, servers, etc.) are fairly low traffic, fairly small amount of data. The customers are using WordPress as a website builder, not as a true blog or forum, so the database doesn't really grow a lot. Although I'm sure I could support and scale it if needed. That's pretty easy, but not if MySQL borks. I'm not on the very newest version either.
There's an automated cron.daily backup, and for a site like this I'd do maybe hourly incremental (as long as it can be restored easily!)
Something in the Apache - php - MySQL chain is a bit inefficient. I haven't put a lot of effort in tracing it, but I'm pretty sure it's php slowing things. Static Apache pages are instant, and I don't have varnish or squid or anything like that running, and I don't have php-fpm properly set up yet, but I will with the new server. There are caching plugins for WordPress which cache the output of the php interpreter. I'm using one or two here and there, but there are better ones out there that I'm researching.
It's by far not my main job, and I'm spread a bit thin, but soon I'll dig into it and get everything integrated and tuned.
As I mentioned (somewhere...) I'm building up a new server and I might go with PostgreSQL. I think I used it for Drupal or Joomla or maybe it was a real estate sales / management system that used it.
A lot of people rail against php, but again, I don't see any problems. Well, it's a bit slow, as most interpreted languages are, and I haven't done any real coding in it- just a few code tweaks. I dunno...
BTW, as you may know, MySQL has many internal "engines", so maybe you were using one that happened to be problematic? I think InnoDB is the most used, "ACID" compliant, etc.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday December 03 2022, @04:41PM (3 children)
We run mysql, and we were using ndb cluster - but no longer. Just mysql now.
Now before you go suggesting another db as being much better - are you able to point us to the old version of Perl software that would drive it too? We can't lose details such as that - they are archived all over the internet.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday December 04 2022, @02:38AM
Not an Oracle shill, at all, but FWIW, I've been running MySQL for more than 14 years in live Internet-facing servers and have had NO problems (and many years before that at home).
I inherited the servers, but of course I've completely rebuilt them from scratch, carrying over some stuff of course. I'm the only admin or any kind of IT person at the location.
Shivers- a couple are running WordPress (Apache, MySQL, php (severe shudders)), again, no problems.
Not too crazy with WordPress plugins- mainstream, mostly from WordPress site.
Had run Joomla, Drupal, and some other specialized MySQL-based stuff. It all worked perfectly, but those things fell through due to sales / business people stuff.
Also love and use phpMyAdmin- fantastic tool to admin MySQL. I do NOT leave it exposed- I make a simple link to it when I run it, in a non-obvious location (IPaddress/~some_directory).
I don't understand all the weeping and gnashing of teeth over php. I've never had a problem with or because of it. I don't think I'm that lucky, in 14+ years, just some simple admin stuff and things seem pretty stable, secure, just works.
There's another great utility I occasionally run is mysqltuner. It's perl. It just does an analysis, gives a report, and makes some suggestions. You take or leave them. One good thing: it will (do its best to) tell you if your configuration will sop up all RAM in a worst-case scenario, so that's been very helpful- tuning hints, cut down on RAM being wasted by large default buffers that your configuration doesn't even use.
I'm not sure of the differences, if any, between MySQL and MariaDB, but it's good to know it's available if/when Oracle does something bad with MySQL. I'll probably make the switch in an upcoming rebuild.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 04 2022, @11:45AM (1 child)
In SN's case SN is probably stuck with MySQL for legacy reasons.
So is MySQL NDB the cause or indirect cause of the data loss? MySQL fanboys and MySQL proponents would often mention MySQL clustering as one of MySQL's advantages.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday December 04 2022, @12:16PM
It appears that it may have been a combination of factors but as for which one set the whole thing in motion I could not say.
I am not going to comment further until NCommander writes a short piece, which he has said he intends to do. As you said, the fanboys will clutch at anything, as will MySQL's detractors.
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Friday December 02 2022, @07:00PM
I saw a message earlier today from NC that the back-end database had failed and was being restored from backup. Then the site was back up. Then the journal catalog vanished [can I get an "Amen!"].
Here [soylentnews.org] is a journal entry where even unregistered ACs can comment about this event and its aftermath. Might be prudent to collect things there until further guidance is provided by overwhelmed staff.
--
- The Beatles, With a Little Help from My Friends
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2022, @04:04AM (1 child)
Lately it's been popular to rag on Mr. Musk. However for anyone interested in what was on the front page recently (including in the ~week that appears lost), voila, I give you the Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/soylentnews/ [twitter.com]
Yep, the SN twit feed kept right on tweeting...until it didn't.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2022, @04:17PM
FTFY.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Sunday December 04 2022, @10:24AM (1 child)
So apple will buy chips from a chinese company that has a factory in arizona and then ship them to their factory in china to be installed?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 05 2022, @03:55PM
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to-be-made-in-texas/ [apple.com]
Or, they'll just ship it to Texas.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"