Intel Lands Tesla As First Major Customer For 14A Chip Technology (yahoo.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday the EV maker plans to use Intel's next-generation 14A manufacturing process to make chips at its Terafab project, an advanced AI chip complex Musk has envisioned in Austin. The contract would mark Intel's first major customer for the technology, a breakthrough for the chipmaker which has struggled to stand up its contract manufacturing business essential for taking on top rival TSMC. Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan has said that the company would exit the chip manufacturing business altogether if it failed to secure an external customer.
Intel has previously said it was in discussions with large customers about 14A, but has not yet disclosed a major external customer. It declined to comment on Musk's remarks. [...] "Given that by the time Terafab scales up, 14A will be probably fairly mature or ready for prime time," Musk said. "14A seems like the right move, and we have a great relationship with Intel," he said. Ben Bajarin, head of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said that Intel's 14A technology could "turn out to be a bigger deal for Intel than folks thought." "It's important to have multiple partners as early design partners to help clean the pipe and work through needed learnings at the leading edge. They will definitely have scale, so a great first non-Intel customer," Bajarin said.
Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg said Musk's vote of confidence in Intel's technology outweighed the unknowns about the Terafab project. "Having a customer is more important than the timing," he said. Goldberg said that Musk's lofty estimates of how many chips its robots could one day require may or may not materialize, but even making chips for Tesla's existing businesses would be a significant win for Intel. "It's not equivalent to Apple or Nvidia" in terms of chip volumes, Goldberg said. "But it's a real customer. It can be real volumes."
Intel has previously said it was in discussions with large customers about 14A, but has not yet disclosed a major external customer. It declined to comment on Musk's remarks. [...] "Given that by the time Terafab scales up, 14A will be probably fairly mature or ready for prime time," Musk said. "14A seems like the right move, and we have a great relationship with Intel," he said. Ben Bajarin, head of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said that Intel's 14A technology could "turn out to be a bigger deal for Intel than folks thought." "It's important to have multiple partners as early design partners to help clean the pipe and work through needed learnings at the leading edge. They will definitely have scale, so a great first non-Intel customer," Bajarin said.
Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg said Musk's vote of confidence in Intel's technology outweighed the unknowns about the Terafab project. "Having a customer is more important than the timing," he said. Goldberg said that Musk's lofty estimates of how many chips its robots could one day require may or may not materialize, but even making chips for Tesla's existing businesses would be a significant win for Intel. "It's not equivalent to Apple or Nvidia" in terms of chip volumes, Goldberg said. "But it's a real customer. It can be real volumes."
Grifty grifty (Score:3)
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I have to ask, what's it like defending a narcissistic ketamine soaked billionaire online? They have no idea who you are and would think you're sucker if they did. Bravo.
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Want a list of false promises? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Grifty grifty (Score:2)
How do you get "promise" out of words like "I think" and "probably"? Especially when your own link doesn't even say that.
Re: Grifty grifty (Score:2)
His entire premise of bring all of this under one roof is ridiculous (the chemicals required to make masks, make cpus and make RAM are all incompatible and therefore need to be environmentally isolated) and show a lack of even a laymans understanding of the processes involved.
Why no discussion about things like hermetic sealing, clean rooms, etc? Because exactly what you're talking about has already been (and is being) done with starlink terminals.
You remind me of that guy on Twitter claiming to be an aerospace engineer, arguing starship will never make it to orbit because "it's too heavy". No discussion about trust vector, escape velocity, or anything like that. Just "trust me bro, I'm smarter than Elon and every engineer working there."
Next year... (Score:4)
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We'll be 18 months into production by next year!
14A? (Score:2)
Why not 1488?
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It is not sophisticated, it is obsolete and non-standard.
And completely out of place in a story about the ketamine nazi plans for world domination.
heh heh (Score:3)
They will definitely have scale, so a great first non-Intel customer
Sure, if they can't get anyone to buy their shit, Leon will have SpaceX buy vehicles to keep the numbers up. Sales are guaranteed!
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Sure, if they can't get anyone to buy their shit, Leon will have SpaceX buy vehicles to keep the numbers up. Sales are guaranteed!
Just to launch them into space!
Not a fan of Intel, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
No love lost for that extremely despicable company, but:
_Competition to AMD is needed (competition is ALWAYS needed).
_Taiwan invasion by China is getting closer.
Current RAM prices are bad, but are only a foretaste of what's to come when China moves on Taiwan.
Re:Not a fan of Intel, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Current RAM prices are bad, but are only a foretaste of what's to come when China moves on Taiwan.
That's why we wanted TSMC to build a fab here, and they did. If China invades Taiwan, then yes there will be significant disruption to markets, but at least it will still be possible to make top quality chips. Meanwhile TSMC's Taiwanese equipment will be destroyed and/or disabled so it cannot be used by China. By the time they reverse engineer what's left, it won't be current any more.
Yes, competition to AMD is needed, but competition isn't what Intel does, is it? Their dominance was based on crime and deli
Hang on (Score:2)
Musk is saying he's going to buy Intel's 14A process for his own fab.
Intel is looking for customers for its 14A process, meaning customers for wafers produced using its 14A process in its own fabs.
Musk really doesn't understand the fab business, does he?
Re:Hang on (Score:5, Informative)
Musk understands he needs to jump start his fab: he doesn't care to take the time to build everything from scratch. This is a licensing deal that gets Musk into the fab business quickly. This is also good deal for Intel: it means Intel has brand new, well capitalized customer (see SpaceX IPO in 2026) that can help get 14A working. Intel captures all the Musk fab money, shutting out TSMC, Samsung, etc., and ends up with a working 14A node for its own markets. It also makes Intel look more credible to other 14A customers, being willing to collaborate on and sign deals with partners on fab tech.
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Intel captures all the Musk fab money, shutting out TSMC, Samsung, etc., and ends up with a working 14A node for its own markets.
That's the question, isn't it? Intel has made grandiose promises about three processes recently, and failed to make good on those promises for two of them.
Re:Hang on (Score:4, Informative)
Intel has made grandiose promises about three processes recently
I think they're doing well, given the givens. Panther Lake launched on time, and they're actually shipping in quantity. 18A is showing a typical yield ramp rate, getting to 60-75% (depending on who you read) yield now, and probably into 80-90% in 2026.
They're actually executing. Feel free to beat them over the head about past failed promises, if that makes you happy. 18A is a GAA + backside power design that this actually a bit ahead of the industry curve. They deserve some credit.
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Honestly, it's rather necessary at this point. After samsung fell off, TSMC being the only supplier of top end tech process made for horrible pricing for those chips.
We need competition in this space and we need it desperately.