I thought historically companies always wanted "second sources" for things like this.
Surely all the fabless semis can't be blithely running off a cliff with TSMC as their only parts source? That would be a catastrophic risk to take down the track if there's only a single vendor for advanced chips and they've decided to hike prices and collect all of the benefits alone from their advanced processes and share none of them with their customers.
As it currently stands, it is reproducible. In 5 years, it might not be, if Samsung/Intel throw in the towel.
I don't really see that happening yet, but at some point if TSMC maintains its lead and the alternative options don't get the sales to continue investing, TSMC could well become completely unassailable at the leading edge.
Intel seems like it’s at least a few years (but I would bet many years) behind TSMC on obtaining/training the necessary people with necessary expertise with the necessary management changes.
It took TSMC a long time and many expensive, risky bets to beat Intel. I imagine it will take Intel just as many resources and time to catch up to TSMC. Hence the divergence in their market caps.
I would frame TSMCs lead to be as much down to a failure st intel rather than a success at TSMC. Intel invested a ton of money into making a non-EUV 7nm process work and basically got it wrong. Now they have EUV, it seems largely a matter of doing basically the same things as TSMC. Not to denigrate TSMC at all, they have excellent execution and are being well rewarded for that.
Intel supposedly will be on par with TSMC in the next year or two with their newest processes. Even when they were stuck on 10nm, they were fabbing competitive parts with it for ages. I don't see the same "years behind" narrative you see, personally.
Interestingly, even TSMC revenue is only 70b usd. Intel made 55b revenue last year (down markedly from earlier years as well). Yes, that combines semiconductor design and fab income, but Intel still has the financials to make things work over the next few years.
Funnily enough, if TSMC starts hiking prices (which presumably they will at some point), that would also aid Intel, since there are only really three players, and Samsung is hardly in a better position than Intel is.
Globalisation in peace time happened, and everyone thought we would just be a group of friends across the globe, with occasional hotspots here and there.
Turns out, yet again we failed to learn from history of past civilizations.
Surely all the fabless semis can't be blithely running off a cliff with TSMC as their only parts source? That would be a catastrophic risk to take down the track if there's only a single vendor for advanced chips and they've decided to hike prices and collect all of the benefits alone from their advanced processes and share none of them with their customers.