Intel is the global leading manufacturer in the semiconductor industry and has been on the top for 20 years. Except for its advanced X86 technology, its process has long been ahead of Samsung and TSMC.
However, Intel is facing the siege of AMD and ARM camp. According to foreign media reports, Intel's Fab 34 project in Ireland will mass-produce the Intel 4 process one year ahead of schedule, which is originally planned to be put into production in 2023. It is estimated that it was shocked by the powerful performance of Apple's M1 ultra processor. In order to avoid its position in the chip market being shaken, it can only accelerate the mass production of this process.
Both AMD and Intel belong to the X86 camp. The Zen architecture developed by AMD in the early years is also X86. The performance of the Zen architecture is excellent enough, coupled with the support of TSMC’s advanced process technology, AMD’s share in the desktop PC processor market has risen rapidly. In 2021, AMD overtook Intel in the desktop PC processor market, which is the first time it has overtaken Intel after 15 years.
Another big blow to Intel is Apple's M-series processors, which belong to the ARM architecture. The performance of Apple's M1 processor is close to Intel's i7, while the M1 ultra launched this year is close to Intel's i9 processor, which breaks the shackles of low power consumption and low performance of the ARM architecture. The power consumption of the M1 ultra is only half that of the Intel i9. It means that the ARM architecture can develop high-performance processors with low power consumption, which brings hope to the ARM camp to attack the PC processor and server chip markets.
A sense of crisis arises spontaneously. In order to stabilize its position in the PC market and server chip market, it is necessary to improve the performance of the X86 architecture and develop advanced processes, and promoting the Intel 4 technology will obviously help to achieve its goals.
Since the mass production of the 14nm FinFET process in 2014, Intel's advanced process development has been delayed again and again, and the 10nm process was not mass-produced until 2019, before which it upgraded the process almost every two years. At the same time, TSMC and Samsung have steadily improved the process, and the mass production of the 3nm process has also been advanced.
However, TSMC and Samsung seem to be tricky in naming the process. The industry believes that the 10nm process of Samsung and TSMC is comparable to Intel's 14nm process, and their 5nm and 7nm correspond to Intel's 7nm and 10nm respectively. Intel has also changed the naming method of the process, such as the 4 process, which is the original 7nm process. Intel believes that their 7nm process can be equivalent to the 4nm process of TSMC and Samsung.
Although the 3nm process is ahead of Intel 4 process, at present, in addition to Apple, it will take some time for other companies in the ARM camp to develop a more advanced architecture by themselves. Therefore, although the crisis occurs, it is yet to pose a huge threat. Intel still has the opportunity to boost the market's confidence in it.