http://www.osnews.com/story/21068/Intel_Outsources_Atom_Production_to_TSMC Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 21 May 2013 06:39:57 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread?351346 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351346 I don't see anything special here.

Intel's main market are still server, desktop processors and more powerfull mobile processors.

Outsourcing Atom means for them that they don't have to build necessary fabs for a larger quantity themselves. If the netbook hype somewhat diminishes or they fail to get into smaller devices, they just don't order anymore.

It may be that Netbooks are in the talks everywhere, but still Atom is not *that* an important processor to Intel. From the article refered to in the earlier story:
Intel recorded revenue of $8.2 billion
Atom [...] pulled in $300 million in revenue

That's 3.7%.Edited 2009-03-02 20:56 UTC Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ford Prefect) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351350 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351350 Well, apart from a pair of monopolists attempting to flood the low power netbook market with windoze machines . . .

Still, it's always easier to let others do the innovating then clean up later.

HTH. Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (m4r35n357) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351362 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351362 http://componentsforlaptop.com/news/2008/10/02/tsmc-bringing-28nm-c...

28nm atom's. while intel and AMD will be at 32nm by then TSMC will be a little better off. Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (poundsmack) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351367 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351367 and:

"As part of the collaboration, Intel Atom CPU cores will be ported to the TSMC technology platform including processes, IP, libraries, and design flows. The result will have Intel Atom SoCs available for a wider range of applications. Intel says it will significantly broaden the market opportunities for the Atom SoCs and accelerate the deployment through multiple SoC implementations." Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (poundsmack) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351385 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351385 TSMC is still working out the kinks out of their 40nm process. Intel has working 32nm *today*.

Intel will be in 22nm lad by the time TSMC has anything close to be working regarding their 28nm process.


By the time they get their 28nm ready (I haven't heard of that node size). Unless their 28 nm is a half node revision of their 40nm process (TSMC has a history of doing 0.5 node increases rather than full node releases, i.e. their 55nm process is pretty much a tweaked 65nm process, like their 80nm was to the 90nm). Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (javiercero1) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351387 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351387 haha you don't see anything special? you are rebounding too hard against the article. there is a lot special about this whole situation. Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luminair) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351396 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351396 Given that Intel is also doing Linux's driver development, I think that it's fair to say that what they want is to flood the embedded world with x86 not necessarily Windows..

Yes Intel has a monopoly on x86 CPU, but I don't think that this agreement with TSMC is an abuse of their monopoly. Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (renox) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351397 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351397 bla bla bla core business bla bla bla cooperation.
It is all about the price. Taiwanese workers cost less and their margin is not high enough on the atom. Some guys in their suit said they want more billions. Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spiderman) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351407 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351407 You're right, that's the thing.

It is about creating custom SoCs around Intel CPUs.
It is about competing ARM CPUs with x86 architecture IPs. Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Treza) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?351463 http://www.osnews.com/thread?351463 Yeah I'm wondering about this, seriously. Everybody is talking about the netbook market, but really. It is some gadget some people want to have and can afford. A clever way of creating an entirely new market. But this market will be repleted very quickly.

And about even smaller devices: Intel still has a lot of work to do. Ok I understand the idea of packing atom into a SoC design. Current implications? It will take them quite some time for the first prototype.. Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ford Prefect) Comments