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aurareturn 4 days ago

  A 200MW data center will always be a 200MW data center, even though the flops it computes will increase.
This here underscores how important TSMC's upcoming N2 node is. It only increases chip density by ~1.15x (very small relative to previous nodes advancements) but it uses 36% less energy at the same speed as N3 or 18% faster than N3 at the same energy. It's coming at the right time for AI chips used by consumers and energy starved data centers.

N2 is shaping up to be TSMC's most important node since N7.

alberth 4 days ago | parent [-]

> N2 is shaping up to be TSMC's most important node since N7

Is it?

N2, from an energy & perf improvement seems on par with any generation node update.

          N2:N3   N3:N5  N5:N7
  Power   ~30%    ~30%    ~30%
  Perf    ~15%    ~15%    ~15%
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tsmc-reveals-2nm-fabricati...
aurareturn 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yes. It has more tape outs at this stage of development than both N5 or N3. It’s wildly popular for chip designers it seems.

alberth 3 days ago | parent [-]

I thought Apple gets exclusive access to the latest node for the first 1-2 years. Is that not the case?

aurareturn 3 days ago | parent [-]

No. That's not the case. Maybe for a few months only.

alberth 3 days ago | parent [-]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't TSMC launch N3 in 2022, and still only Apple uses this latest/smallest node.

Both AMD and NVIDIA are using N4.

aurareturn 2 days ago | parent [-]

Apple, Mediatek, Qualcomm, Intel