N3E is actually cheaper than N3B.
And why is it so:
-For N5, the standard SRAM cell size is 0.210um2; Made of single EUV style,
-For N3B also known as N3, the standard SRAM cell size is 0.199um2They were manufactured in a dual EUV pattern possibly for M1, M2 and M3, and used self-aligning contacts (SAC). This was new to TSMC, and Intel had been using it since 2011.
-For N3E, the default SRAM cell size is 0.2102,Made of EUV single engraving without SAC.
be seen Including here.
In other words, the N3E simply reuses the same SRAM cells as the N5.
The only difference is that with N3E, chip designers can use different optimizations (lower consumption / higher performance) in a single block (FinFlex), with N5, this is not possible.
The A17 isn’t at all disproportionately expensive due to “low yield”, because Apple doesn’t pay for broken chips; Just for good. So, if it’s expensive, it’s only expensive for TSMC; This is only the case if the return is lower than what TSMC expected. This doesn’t really matter, because N3B was only intended for low trading.
So this is not a failure, but it was all simply planned by Apple and TSMC. This N3B would be more expensive than the N3E, because the N3B had to have a faster “time to market”. Apple (and perhaps others) wanted it as early as 2022, and TSMC needed until 2023 to establish the “optimal price” N3 process.
That’s why Apple is getting the complex, expensive version in 2022; While “the rest” (AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom) were just waiting for the N3E; And of course Apple itself too. And because they knew it from the beginning, it was calculated this way, and it was sold to Apple by TSMC: N3E is a Completely different Process of N3 (B), ready only after a year.
Likewise, Huawei was the first to get the N7 process (EUV), which wasn’t great and was expensive. Apple and AMD skipped this process, stopping briefly at first with the N7P (N7 DUV), and a year later TSMC introduced the N6; This eventually became the popular option that everyone started using. So the “flagship” N7 (EUV) actually only had one customer: Huawei; They paid the highest price but were the first on the market to have chips made with UV technology.
[Reactie gewijzigd door kidde op 26 september 2023 00:16]