[tgtweak]

I don't feel that there is a meaningful TSMC alternative today. Samsung, Intel and GlobalFoundries are not suitable replacements for TSMC with regards to throughput or technology.

The world does need some meaningful fabs outside of Taiwan/South Korea. All of the <10nm semiconductor and most of the >10nm semiconductor fabrication takes place within a 750km/460mile radius circle today. That is risky.

Israel, Mexico, Germany, Canada, Japan (not that it would grow the circle much...) are all viable places to run a foundry. The fact that Intel is one of the few outside that circle doesn't inspire confidence in the security of the global supply chain.

[totalZero]

One of the key misconceptions that I see repeated in the comments for this article is that lithography with sub-10nm feature size is somehow universally appropriate and preferable. This may be true for high-performance computing or other applications that are sensitive to the ratio of compute to price (or mobile consumer devices with a small thermal envelope), but it's not necessarily true for power electronics, automotive ICs, or missile control systems. Some of those chips aren't even made of silicon, instead being made of more expensive gallium nitride or gallium arsenide because of their thermal, high-frequency, radiation, and voltage properties.

[mdasen]

I mostly agree that there isn't a great alternative to TSMC, but I would point out that the 2021 Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processors are being made by Samsung with their 5nm process (in addition to their new Exynos 2100). Intel and GlobalFoundries aren't really replacements, but Samsung has been winning business for latest-generation flagship processors. Maybe it isn't as advanced as TSMC and maybe Samsung will have problems, but a lot of the 2021 flagship phones will be shipping with Samsung-manufactured 5nm processors.

Samsung seems to be keeping it close.

[tgtweak]

It's still within that circle. Samsung is a great fab, probably the only real contender to TSMC. Samsung is 17% global semiconductor demand vs TSMC at 50%+. Included in that 17% is all of Samsung's demand (Exynos, SSD/storage, memory, etc).

Further agitating the issue, South-Korean SK-Hynix is buying Intel's nand business this year and will likely shift production out of intel's US fabs when it comes time.

[oblio]

It doesn't even have to be war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Thailand_floods#Damages_t...