I recently learned that Intel’s latest generation desktop CPUs (Codename Arrow Lake) will be all fabricated with TSMC instead of its own fabs. It’s quite disappointing that Intel could not fabricate the most advanced chips in volume for this generation of desktop chips despite being the largest recipient of subsidies from the Chip’s and Science Act. After pushing for simultaneous multithreading/Hyper-Threading in the mainstream since the early 2010s, this tech was left out this generation and hopefully the performance and power efficiency gains will be worth it.
Overall, I think it’s a bit depressing that all the latest advanced chips are nearly all made by TSMC since AMD, Nvidia, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Apple, Mediatek, etc. are contracting fabrication to them. However, I give mad props to the TSMC engineers for upholding the Silicon Shield, which to many if not most of them is like patriotic military service and/or protecting their country.