this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
75 points (95.2% liked)

World News

32317 readers
552 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

7nm isn't close to 5nm? There's a difference of 45%? What! No way!

Fact is, the Huawei Mate 60 has moved over 30 million units. While that's in no way comparable to Apple's 200+ million units annually, it's a significant scale representing a robust supply chain that's capable of churning out functioning chips. If, by your claims, yields are low because of an immature process, then you'd only expect yields to go up as the process matures.

Yield is not a static factor, but one built on by process development and co-design. You can look at how Intel's yields have increased over the years: they refrained from using EUV on their 10nm (Intel 7) process and, while they ran into a bunch of engineering challenges and delays, still ended up shipping Intel 7 at scale.

These aren't unsolvable issues, but ones of engineering and manpower and skill. EUV still requires multi-patterning for 3nm, so it's not like the problem has been eliminated.